UPDATE: Northrail Project (Phases 1 and 2)

2 April 2009: An additional P9.82B of official development assistance was approved by Malacanang to be sourced for seven infrastructure projects that exceeded their budget. The Northrail Project is one of the seven projects that incurred cost overruns; it overshot its budget by P2.76B.

The increase in prices of inputs from the time of apprival to the start of project implementation was cited as one of the reasons for the cost overrun, as explained by Roderick M. Planta, the Director of NEDA’s project monitoring staff.

The total cost overruns for 19 ODA-funded projects will reach a total of P28.82B, NEDA explained.

10 other projects needed P14.5B in additional funding, but were not granted because their ODA packages have since been closed.

Source: PDI, April 2, 2009.