After the public transport crisis, Sofia may face a garbage crisis. Two companies that clean 8 districts of the city announced last Thursday that they will stop work due to unpaid 9 million leva. The municipality cannot announce new public procurement for cleaning the city. The procedure has been delayed by the Public Procurement Agency.
Mayor Vasil Terziev warned that if the public procurements are not announced on time, entire neighborhoods may be left covered in garbage.
Over 1,000 people work in the two companies, which are practically unable to pay their salaries, announced Anastasia Yoveva, a lawyer for both companies:
"There are too many difficulties for us to continue working in the current environment. Therefore, we ourselves were partially forced - so I can say, with a purely legal option, the Sofia Municipality annexed the contract to us until a new contractor is selected, which it has the right to do within the next six months. At the moment, we have not seen a public procurement procedure for garbage collection and transportation.
We want to continue to help the city, we want to conclude our contracts within reasonable limits, but we ask and appeal to be heard. No commitments have been made. What should we do? Will there be partial payments? When will there be partial payments? The next payment of salaries is coming. These are millions of leva that we owe to the people.
Deputy Mayor for Ecology Nadezhda Bobcheva is committed that, once the budget of Sofia is adopted, the companies will receive their money:
"The truth is that given the unadopted budget, we have problems with all payments. The Public Procurement Agency has been delaying its decision for 40 days. This also makes it impossible for us to launch a public procurement procedure. If the deadline had been met, we would have announced an order long ago and there would have been an update of the values. I do not think that we have in any way violated anything. After all, the Municipality is a reliable payer and it fulfills its commitments and the moment the budget is adopted, it will pay for everything".