From inception, PSALM logs debt payments reaching P1.47 trillion

By Myrna M. Velasco – February 1, 2018, 10:00 PM
from Manila Bulletin

Since the start of its corporate life at the restructuring of the country’s power sector, state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) reported that the level of its debt payments already reached P1.47 trillion, although it is still not enough to tangibly wipe out its liabilities.

In fact, on the company’s assessment as well as of its parent-firm agencies, its liabilities cannot even be stamped out yet at the end of its corporate life in 2026.

In a statement to the media, PSALM noted that its debt settlements comprised of P555.7 billion maturing obligations with independent power producers (IPPs); P567.7 billion principal debts; and R364 billion interest and other charges.

Last year alone, the company indicated that payments of financial obligations amounted to P73.3 billion, accounting for P55.9 billion debts and IPP obligations; and P17.4 billion interests.

It similarly noted that beyond the P73.3 billion it paid in 2017, it settled additional P10 billion dues to the State – chiefly with the Bureau of the Treasury “for its advances to PSALM in 2016 that was utilized to bridge financing gap.”

The company explained that “funds in settling PSALM’s assumed financial obligations are sourced from collections from its power generation, privatization proceeds and universal charge.”

On its mandate of divesting the power assets of its precursor firm National Power Corporation, PSALM stressed that proceeds hovered at P528 billion.

Additionally, universal charge collections from stranded contract costs had summed up to P56.9 billion.

“PSALM’s financial obligations peaked to P1.24 trillion in 2003 from P831 billion in 2000,” the company has emphasized.