Privatization vs corruption?

With horrible tales of corruption being served to us every day, not degustation-style but in overflowing platters, many in the business circles say it's time to just privatize many of the impossibly graftriddled government functions.

- IRIS GONZALES

Their suggestion is to privatize notorious agencies - from the Bureau of Customs to the Bureau of e Internal Revenue and the most corrupt of them all, the Department of Public Works and Highways, as well as many other agencies here and there whose operations are covered with bureaucratic cobwebs.

Is privatization really the answer to our perennial corruption woes?

Power, airports, water

Many in the private sector, of course, believe so, including tycoon Henry "Big Boy" Sy, Jr.

"Privatization with good governance is the answer," he told me recently.

Big Boy, of course, is part of the successful privatization of the country's power industry through the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the privately owned grid operator.

Today, NGCP charges P0.55 per kWh, lower than the P0.74 per kWh before privatization. And since the company took over the country's transmission highway in 2009, outages have dropped by 82 percent.

NGCP, of course, isn't perfect, but is a more efficient and better grid operator compared to the government.

As a testament to its efficiency and viability, the Marcos administration sought to become part of it. We all know that Maharlika, the country's first sovereign wealth fund, invested in Synergy Grid and Development Philippines Inc., the listed company behind the NGCP.

Another successful privatization, Big Boy said, is the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, now operated by the San Miguel Corp.-led New NAIA Infra Corp., noting that NNIC has already remitted P52 billion (including upfront payment) to the government in just one year of private operations.