Busan Universal Rail Inc. is blaming the government for the unreliable service and poor maintenance of the Metro Trail Transit (MRT) Line 3 after taking full responsibility of the train system in November last year.
BURI said in a statement it turned over to DOTr a well-maintained and operating MRT3 when its contract was terminated in November.
BURI said it consistently met all its contracted requirements of 20 trains and at times exceeding it up to 21 or 22 trains.
BURI began to maintain the MRT3 in 2016 with only 12 trains, and increased the rail cars to 16 in two months and eventually to 20 in 10 months.
“This is a far cry from what we are experiencing today, 11 trains running at peak hours and occasionally dropping to just 5 trains,” BURI said.
“It is to BURI’s credit, with its experienced Korean and Filipino engineers, to achieve all this despite payments for services already rendered were withheld for 10 months, resulting in even higher operational cost and indebted to its suppliers,” the company added.
BURI said the DOTr failed to organize a transition team, composed of experienced rail engineers, to ensure the continued safety and efficient maintenance of the MRT3.
“The excessively long queues have resulted not only in the dismay of the riders but the loss of a limb of one female passenger and worse, the life of a young woman. DOTr reported that this did not happen on peak hours but they fail to say that the present operation of the MRT3 is now likened to peak hours on any given time due to the lack of running trains to serve the high volume of passengers,” BURI said.
DOTr Officer-In-Charge Undersecretary for Railways TJ Batan earlier said spare parts for the maintenance of MRT-3 would start arriving in tranches from February to June, with MRT-3 having started to procure them in November 2017.
Batan said the government would take advantage of the Holy Week break to conduct general maintenance works on MRT-3.
