Public – but not ‘public’
Council to set up new entity for frontline services
TORREVIEJA town hall has announced that it is setting up a public company which can ‘manage’ council services.
Mayor Eduardo Dolón said this week that the entity would run these public services ‘indirectly’ and ‘will never take over the operation’.
This means that the council would still put contracts such as the multi-million rubbish collection and street cleaning service out to tender so it could be run by a private company.
Opposition parties at the town hall stated they were unable to understand how the new system would lead to public management of services.
They said they understood that contracts would still be adjudicated to private companies – and that, in reality, nothing would change in the way the services were operated.
First steps
Sr Dolón explained this week that before they set up the new public company, a commission will be constituted to evaluate ‘which municipal services it can take on’.
They will report back with their findings in one month, he said, and the new entity could be up and running in June or July.
One of its roles will be to ‘manage funding which comes from the European Union’.
Rubbish collection
The contract to run the rubbish collection and street cleaning service expired in 2016 and it is still run by the multinational Acciona.
The previous coalition council had tried to take over the service but this was voted down in a full council meeting.
Since coming to power in 2019 the current Partido Popular (PP) council had proposed two options for the costly service.
However, the proposal to run it as a joint public/private concern – like the town’s Agamed water company – was discounted.
As a result, according to the town hall, the new public entity will adjudicate the new contract to a private company ‘during the last part of this year’.