The mayor intends to approve the increase in garbage prices with four objections from the Audit department

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, from the PP, is going to take to an extraordinary plenary session, which will be held next Friday, March 7, the approval of the economic proposal for the execution of waste collection and street cleaning services for this year 2025, for an amount of more than 15 million euros, with up to four objections from the municipal Audit department. The socialist spokesperson, Cristina Escoda, has criticized that, despite the serious warnings of the municipal inspection department, "the first mayor continues with the processing of this price revision file for the garbage contract that contemplates an increase of more than 800,000 euros compared to the previous year."

Escoda has criticized that the mayor tried to take "under the table" and by urgency, as an extraordinary office, this point to the last plenary session of February, held on Friday 28, without leaving us hardly any time to study the extensive documentation of the file. “This is the way Mr. Pérez manages and governs, who is incapable of putting out to tender a new garbage contract that has been expired for seven years and for which he is going to pay almost a million euros more this year,” she stressed.

Regarding the intervention report, the spokesperson has detailed that it warns that “since the 2023 financial year, the price review has not been carried out with the annual variation of the CPI for December of the previous year.” In this sense, she points out that “the economic proposal for the continuity of the service is not formulated at the real prices at which it should be carried out when, in addition, it is up to the administration and not the company to demand that they be fixed, breaching the principle of efficient use of public funds that must govern all municipal action, for which reason an objection is formulated based on articles 1 and 210 of Law 9/2017, of November 8.” The second objection states that the justification for the concept of 'Maintenance of underground containers' is "insufficient, a concept that did not appear in the 2022, 2021, 2020 or even in the 2019 financial year", and stresses that "there is no room for a generic establishment of this cost, but rather for indicating the real cost of this service and settling the amounts on account paid by the City Council in the 2023 and 2024 financial years".

Regarding the third objection, the Audit department states that the total cost of rent increases by 548,772.00 euros, going from 1,529,756 euros in 2024 to 2,078,528 euros in 2025, that is, 35.87% more. Furthermore, it highlights that “it is not understood that the proposal includes the doubled cost for the entire year, both in ownership and in rental regime”, so “the economic proposal for the continuity of the service is not formulated at the real prices or with the appropriate resources to which it should be carried out, breaching the principle of efficient use of public funds that must govern all municipal action”.

The last objection focuses on the form of billing and monthly price review, and points out that “it is not observed for this year, as it was not done in 2023 and 2024, the application of 85% to the CPI, which was done for the years 2021 and 2022. Thus, it highlights that, consequently, “the application of the proposed formula after applying the review of the variation of the annual CPI and the non-application of 85% to it increases the cost of the service generating an extraordinary benefit for the contractor in an unjustified way, which is harmful to the City Council and contrary to the efficient use of public funds that must govern all municipal action”.

Finally, the socialist leader regretted that the mayor has once again ignored the warnings of the Audit department in the processing of everything related to the garbage contract. “They approved a new contract with reports against it that ended up being overturned by the TACRC, and they approved it years ago and intend to approve next Friday the revision of prices despite the objections,” she stressed.