STATE-ADMINISTERED Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) plans to go after uncollected dues from the privatization of the government’s power assets.

Emmanuel Ledesma, Jr., PSALM president and chief executive officer, said on Wednesday that the asset management has yet to collect a substantial amount from the sale of National Power Corp.’s (Napocor) independent power producer (IPP) contracts and National Grid Corp. of the Philippines’ concession fees.

“PSALM [has] yet to collect $9.99 billion in additional proceeds from the transfer of IPP contracts to private administrators as of September 2011,” he said.

“PSALM is also in the process of expediting the collection of $2.81-billion remaining payment for the concession of the country’s sole transmission business,” Ledesma added.

PSALM plans to reflect the remaining privatization proceeds in the subsequent filings of universal charge (UC) before regulators, or the tariff consumers would have to pay in their electricity bills to settle Napocor debts that would not be covered by the privatization of its assets.

PSALM’s last UC filing was in June 2011 and is worth P139 billion. Broken down, consumers would have to pay an additional P0.03 per kilowatt-hour and P0.36 kWh for Napocor’s stranded debts (SD) and stranded contract cost (SCC) should the UC be approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

The SCC is the excess of Napocor’s contracted cost of electricity with IPPs over the actual selling price of their energy output. SDs, on the other hand, are the unpaid financial obligations of Napocor that have not been liquidated by the proceeds from the sale of its assets.

“The decrease in the UC charges will hinge on the completion of the privatization program and the efficiency of PSALM’s liability management program,” Ledesma said.

PSALM initially filed a UC of P518 billion in 2009 and 2010, but brought it down to the latest level after the subsequent sale of number of Napocor assets.

Napocor’s debts stand at roughly $18 billion. PSALM, on the other hand, has generated around $10.21 billion proceeds from the successful sale of power and transmission assets. The latter, however, used $5.47 billion to settle the former’s maturing obligations, inclusive of interest.

PSALM is the agency mandated by law to privatize Napocor’s assets and use the proceeds thereof to settle the latter’s debts.