{"id":125395,"date":"2017-10-20T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=125395"},"modified":"2017-10-20T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T10:00:19","slug":"poe-welcomes-dotr-plan-to-terminate-buri-mrt-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/20\/poe-welcomes-dotr-plan-to-terminate-buri-mrt-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Poe welcomes DOTr plan to terminate BURI MRT contract"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sen.<\/a>
FILE: Sen. Grace Poe (PNA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Senator Grace Poe on Friday welcomed the move of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to issue a notice to terminate the contract of the Metro Rail Transit’s (MRT) maintenance provider, Busan Universal Rails, Inc (BURI).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about time that the DOTr took decisive action against BURI. BURI has proven to be an incompetent maintenance service provider,\u201d Poe said in a press statement.<\/p>\n

Poe, chair of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said that the riding public has suffered \u201cmore than enough \u201cwith its record of train breakdowns and derailments.<\/p>\n

She, meanwhile, cautioned the DOTr to anticipate legal action taken by BURI and make sure that the MRT continues to run and provides better service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DOTr should ensure that the people do not suffer from unreliable and unsafe public transportation during the course of litigation,\u201d Poe said.<\/p>\n

Poe also urged the agency to address repairs and maintenance of the trains by either looking for a new contractor or by creating a technical and engineering team that will see to the repair and maintenance of the trains.<\/p>\n

BURI has seven days to respond to DOTr\u2019s notice. Reports showed that BURI\u2019s legal counsel is now preparing its response.<\/p>\n

Poe earlier said that she is poised to recommend raps against former officials of the now defunct Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) in relation to problems hounding the MRT-3.<\/p>\n

Poe lamented anew how a total of PHP526 million in taxpayers’ money was wasted in purchasing 48 light rail vehicles (LRVs) for the MRT-3 as they were incompatible with existing facilities.<\/p>\n

She said that a total of PHP526 million has so far been paid by the government to Dalian Corp., out of the PHP3.8 billion deal.<\/p>\n

Only 29 out of the 48 LRVs that were delivered have signaling system installed and the DOTr is still in the process of running tests on the trains.<\/p>\n

She said that there were several “grounds for canceling the order” and return the trains to the Chinese company which manufactured them.<\/p>\n

The DOTr, for its part, said it is considering returning the incompatible coaches to China.
\nPoe said she may call for another hearing on the MRT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senator Grace Poe on Friday welcomed the move of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to issue a notice to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":106551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[12455,28777,3662,7550],"class_list":["post-125395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-department-of-transportation-and-communications","tag-grace-poe","tag-metro-rail-transit","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}