The Yaiza City Council plenary session has approved this Friday to initiate a file to terminate the waste collection service contract of the municipality due to the "serious and constant breaches by the contractor", which "if maintained, would put the health of the municipality's population at extreme risk". This is stated in the technical report that the government group has brought to the Plenary to defend this motion through the urgent procedure.
Now, Yaiza will transfer the decision of the Plenary to the responsible company, Hernández Bello, and its guarantor, in this case a bank, which have ten days to present allegations. The City Council will then submit its resolution proposal to the Canary Islands Advisory Council to act accordingly. The Consistory specifies that the opinion of the Advisory Council is mandatory but not binding and that the final approval will then depend on the Plenary.
"The municipal government acts responsibly, addressing the problem suffered by citizens and adhering to the legality and procedures that govern the public administration," defended the mayor, Óscar Noda.
"The City Council demonstrates with objective data that the breaches of the service are not specific and/or circumstantial, classified as serious and subject to economic penalty; but are breaches so serious and systematic that they push the Institution to take the path of contract termination as the mayor has been publicly reporting in recent months," the Consistory said in a statement.
A reckless low bid when applying for the tender
The local Administration also recalls that this service was tendered for 13 million euros and yet the concessionaire offered to assume it for almost half, that is, 7 million euros for a period of ten years, extendable to two more, having to justify its reckless low bid.
The City Council argues that the company "cannot now protect its non-compliant conduct in the increase in the volume of waste for two basic reasons: first because it clearly assumed the contract at its own risk, and second, because the increase in waste in recent years has not been of such a volume that it can be classified as unaffordable". In fact, they add that the tourism association Asolan "confirms in writing that the occupancy level of hotel establishments has been reduced in 2017 and that a reduction of between 5 and 10 percent is also expected for the end of this year".
"The obligation to collect the garbage containers from all buildings or houses on the route is the main object of the contract, an obligation that has been breached from April 2018 to today without any remedy being put in place by the concessionaire," insists the Consistory.
"Intolerable levels" and "unsanitary situations"
According to the City Council, "the latest reports from the Health Inspection revealed that the accumulation of waste in the streets of the municipality was reaching intolerable levels, causing notorious and reported unsanitary situations". In this regard, they explain that "if the health emergency has not been decreed, it is because the hotel facilities have managed the collection of waste from their containers by their own means in the face of the deficit of the service provided by the concessionaire company".
On the other hand, they specify that although the attention to this problem has been focused on Playa Blanca, the municipal report also certifies that the breaches extend to different payments of the municipality. "The lack of collection of all containers every day along the route occurs throughout the municipality. The Institution has complaints from residents of all the nuclei, although the greatest incidence occurs in the southern tourist area," they emphasize.
Apart from the fact that the company does not comply with the frequency stipulated in the route of the garbage collection trucks, Yaiza also argues that "it fails to maintain and replace deteriorated containers, and those that it replaces are containers of 770 liters of capacity and not of 1,100 liters as established in the exploitation project".
"It also fails to remove dead animals, to maintain the trucks, and of course, as already said before, with the essential obligation to collect the garbage containers from all buildings or houses on the route and to transport the waste to the Zonzamas Environmental Complex," concludes the Consistory.
