PGKM Chair Ruperto Cruz said here on Friday that the staterun Clark Development Corp. (CDC) has put the MLE up for bidding next month without consulting its more than 2,000 active and inactive members even as others alleged that golf and country club members could be as many as 3,500.
Cruz said the deal might be “grossly disadvantageous to the government” since the CDC is offering “only P800 million” as its minimum bid for a 50- year concession.
The CDC has announced last month that it is set to privatize the sprawling Mimosa estate, setting for October the bidding for the right to lease, manage, operate and develop the estate for 50 years.
The CDC said “the winning bidder shall be the one who submitted the Highest Ranked and Complying Bid, and has complied with all the minimum compliance requirements.”
The CDC also said “prospective bidders should have been in the business of mixed-use, tourism -related activities equivalent to at least 50 percent of the P5 billion committed investment.”
The leisure estate will be auctioned off as part of the government’s strategy to attract private investment and boost tourism in the area, according to reports.
The CDC said the terms of reference for the bidding was made available to prospective bidders for a non-refundable fee of P500,000 (in the form of a manager’s or cashier’s check payable to CDC) from August 24 until Sept. 14.
A pre-bidding conference will then be held at 10 a.m. on Sept. 16 at the CDC boardroom while the submission of bids was set on a 1 p.m. deadline on Oct. 13.
In 1998, CDC regained control of the property from Mondragon Leisure & Resorts Corp., which failed to pay its rental obligations to the government. Several attempts to bid out the property in the past had failed.
The Mimosa estate has a hotel, villas and residential complex, a casino, and a 36-hole all-weather golf course designed by the Honolulu based team of Nelson, Wright and Haworth.
