300,000 Sofia residents are without garbage collection. The crisis came after the contract of the previous company expired, and only one candidate remained in the announced competition, offering double the price, bTV reported.
The Sofia Municipality explained that for the moment, emergency waste collection is going according to plan.
„All gray containers have been placed in their places. I know that this is something new for citizens, but I appeal to citizens to take advantage of them if possible. I remind you that furniture and bulky waste should not be thrown away. If there is really no way, I urge them to do it in a neighboring area, where garbage collection is not disrupted,“ explained Nadezhda Bobcheva, Deputy Mayor for Ecology in the Municipality.
In the “Lyulin“ area there are 8 points, and in the “Krasno Selo“ area there are 3 points where citizens can throw away their garbage. Work is underway to increase the number of places where waste can be thrown away. The municipality asked citizens to collect separately and throw it in the colored containers that are not affected by the crisis.
“There will also be groups of volunteers on the ground who will help inform citizens in the area. We have noticed that traders are abusing and leaving their waste in unregulated places and we will try to notify them and warn them not to do so“, she added.
Currently, the Sofia Municipality has announced a 2-week emergency garbage collection regime. According to Bobcheva, there will be talks with all companies that participated in the public procurement and have a license in our country for this activity. She explained that a new public procurement can be organized in a short time, because the work is being done in an emergency.
Bobceva also said that the contracts for the remaining regions expire in three months.
She explained that at the moment the company was carrying out waste cleaning activities for 144 leva including VAT per ton, the estimated value of the municipality was 200 leva including VAT, and the cheapest offer they received was 430 leva including VAT per ton.
When asked why there was no ceiling in the public procurement, Bobchev said that the regions in Sofia are different and are cleaned at different prices, which were set in the previous procedure. She pointed out that there are other municipalities in the country that have received inflated prices for the service.