MANILA — State-owned National Power Corp. awaits the release of its P3.8-billion receivables from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to partly finance its fuel and debt obligations, a company official said.
Napocor president Froilan Tampinco said the PSALM board met last Dec. 21 and approved the release of funds which the state power firm used to advance for the value added tax payments for its privatized assets.
Napocor hopes that PSALM can release at least an initial P2.2 billion to P2.7 billion from the P3.8 billion receivables as the company needs around P15 billion this year for the operations of its missionary electrification program under the Small Power Utilities Group.
"This is for our advances for VAT because when we privatized the plants, we paid for the VAT. We had the funds at that time. They are supposed to release to cover our obligations in 2011. I think PSALM will come across with that within the quarter. Our obligations for fuel and [loan] from Land Bank will cover that," Tampinco said.
For his part, PSALM president Emmanuel Ledesma said the agency approved the release of the funds for Napocor's VAT advances.
"Yes, that pertains to the partial reimbursement of VAT assessed by the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and paid by Napocor on the sale of the Magat and Pantabangan-Masiway plant," Ledesma said.
Ledesma said the release of the funds "will depend greatly on PSALM's management of its cash position and Napocor's requirement for the settlement of its outstanding obligations."
Tampinco earlier said at they planned to raise the P15 billion requirement through the universal charge for missionary electrification, company revenues and government reimbursements.
Tampinco said that if they fail to raise the needed financing for SPUG, they will lack resources for capital investments and fuel deliveries. Napocor is also banking on the approval of its remaining petition with the Energy Regulatory Commission for universal charge recovery for missionary electrification.
He said they hoped ERC would allow them to increase Napocor's universal charge recovery by P0.07 per kilowatthour.
Tampinco said Napocor is already prohibited from borrowings due to a legal opinion from the Justice Department which barred the power firm and its SPUG operations from engaging in further borrowings and in fund-raising activities like bond issuances.
"We have not overcome the authority to borrow. We have already filed as request with the Joint Congressional Power Commission but they have not tackled that," he said.
Napocor SPUG operates 157 power plants with a combined capacity of almost 200 megawatts in far-flung islands that are not connected to any of the main grids. (PNA)
RMA/ASF/utb
