Six firms have been shortlisted by the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) for the independent operation audit of the country’s Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.

These are Intelligent Energy Systems (IES) in partnership with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu of Australia; Isla Lipana and Company, a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Philippines; Manabat San Agustin & Co. of KPMG Philippines; Nexant Inc. of the United States; PA Consulting of New Zealand and SGV & Co., a member firm of Ernest and Young Global in partnership with Power Systems Consultant, Philippines.

It was disclosed though that Nexant already dropped its interest in the audit task and had formally informed PEMC of such move.

The market operator said the evaluation of technical proposals of the five remaining bidders are on-going, preparatory to the opening of financial proposal on August 5, 2009 and the confirmation of the winning bidder by the PEM Board.

“Audit will commence immediately after the contract signing,” PEMC said. The audit duration will stretch for a maximum of 120 days, or based on PEMC’s expectations, it will be completed by December this year.

The need to tap an external auditor to evaluate the operations and systems processes in the WESM has been provided under the WESM Rules.

PEMC president Melinda L. Ocampo noted this is one of the undertakings that must be completed prior to the appointment of an independent market operator (IMO) that shall oversee the operations of the spot market.

“First step for the IMO is the audit.

But then, we also need to look at the review on WESM Rules and those of the other programs tied to operations of the market,” she said.

“By next year, we can already have the IMO in place. But this year, no, we can’t relinquish the operations of the market until such time that we finish the audit process,” she stressed.