The mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda, detailed this Monday in a press conference the current situation of the Playa Blanca Sports Pavilion and the municipal roadmap to finish and put this sports facility at the service of citizens.
The municipal president assured that the work presents an execution level of 95% and that it is paralyzed because the company Levantina, Ingeniería y Construcción, responsible for its construction, has not been able to "restructure its debt", confirming this summer the Commercial Court number 1 of Valencia the declaration of "its entry into bankruptcy proceedings".
Yaiza, consequently, is committed to "an expert appraisal of the project to decide on the provisional reception of the Pavilion, and if so, to terminate the contract signed with the contractor, to assume with its own resources, as it has done with the entire project, the execution of the remaining 5%, asking for responsibilities from the project management, and of course, from the construction company itself if there is no agreement".
Óscar Noda maintained that "we have always maintained our will and commitment to finish the work and open the Pavilion, paying punctually all our obligations to the construction company within the framework of legality. We have reserved 700,000 euros from the municipal budget for its direct management to cover cleaning, maintenance, administration and monitor services, and we even have a draft of the public prices for the use of the facility. It is the fastest way to get the Pavilion up and running. Then we will do an evaluation to see if we opt for indirect management or maintain the idea of direct management for two years, plus two more".
Yaiza values the actions that remain to be executed, mainly the exterior works of the Pavilion and the load and operation tests of the three swimming pools, to put the project out to tender. "I cannot talk about deadlines because the procedure has several factors to take into account. The first is to resolve the second modification requested by the contractor for 2.9 million euros, totally unfeasible and out of reality, according to the studies carried out by our technicians".
Project Retrospective
Up to eight companies bid for the contract for the Playa Blanca Sports Pavilion, with UTE Levantina, Ingeniería y Construcción – Solventia Ingeniería y Construcción winning the public tender, to whom the work was awarded for 5.2 million euros in September 2019, with the contract signed in October of that same year. The company had to justify "in the first instance a reckless bid and submitted the request for the only modification to date, for 1.6 million, which was approved by Yaiza in the Plenary in May 2021, attending to the relevant technical reports".
As a result of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and the inflation that both events produced, the State approved in 2022, within the Public Sector Contracts Law, allowing the exceptional revision of the prices of works contracts due to the exponential increase in the costs of materials. In that adaptation of the amount of the contract, "the company requested two price modifications under all the certifications made: the first, on August 9, 2022 for an amount of 358,000 euros, and the second, on August 9, 2023 for 439,000 euros".
The mayor stressed that "we have met with all the parties involved, contractor, project management, municipal technicians and lawyers, and analyzing all the variables, we believe that it is the best way to respond to citizen demand. We give the explanations with reliable data and with the transparency that characterizes the Yaiza government group". Levantina, Ingeniería y Construcción remained solely responsible for the project because during the execution the other company of the temporary union of companies, Solventia Ingeniería y Construcción, decided to leave the UTE.
