Mobility proposes to the plenary session to solve the blue zone and tow truck contract due to the company's non-compliance

Benidorm City Council will take to the plenary session next Monday the proposal of the Mobility Councilor to initiate the contractual resolution file with the concessionaire company of the public service of the blue zone and the municipal towing as a consequence of the non-compliance detected and reflected in technical reports, several of which affect essential conditions of the contract.

Councilman Francis Muñoz's proposal entails annulling the sanctioning file initiated after the plenary agreement last April and initiating the aforementioned contractual resolution file. It is also proposed to terminate the contract and, therefore, annul the administrative contractual relationship of the winning company - the UTE Autobuses Playa de San Juan and SICE - with Benidorm City Council. This resolution would entail the loss of the company's deposit.

However, the proposal includes granting a hearing procedure for the concessionaire to argue and present the documents they consider within ten days. If the successful bidder opposes the termination of the contract, the file and allegations will be sent to the Consell Jurídic Consultiu to issue the corresponding opinion. In that case, the calculation of the period to resolve the procedure would be suspended until said opinion is received.

The proposal that Muñoz will take to the plenary session also proposes declaring the contractor's "repeated non-compliance" with the obligations contracted in the contract, as well as requiring him "to cease committing the violations detected within a maximum period of five days" and to reimburse “parking fees improperly accrued to users of the ORA zone.”

The proposal is based on the report prepared by the Technician of the General Administration of the City Council, instructor of the file. This report refers to another made by the project management last February in which it was already proposed "the termination of the contract due to the commission of infractions classified as very serious" and the requirement to the concessionaire "so that within the period within five days to proceed to cease the commission of the detected infractions as well as to reimburse the amounts unduly charged to the users of the service.”

The municipal technician recalled in his report that the company made allegations last May and June and that once the hearing process was completed, the management issued a new report on September 14 dismissing the aforementioned allegations and pointing out “that non-compliance continues to occur in the present".

This same report establishes a list of the non-compliance indicated by the project management, seven in total, which are as follows: Charging more than what is established by the applicable rate, not communicating to the City Council the additional collection of some supposed management expenses not approved, reduction of personnel assigned to the contract without municipal authorization, cessation of current technical assistance, non-existence of an office on the street with regulated parking, non-compliance with the vending ATM by not dispensing money and non-compliance with office materials and equipment.

All of these breaches are classified as “very serious infractions” and five of them, according to the technical report, entail “immediate termination of the contract.”

The Councilor for Mobility has insisted that "in the processing of this report, all procedural phases have been observed at all times, including two hearing procedures for the company" and has regretted that, as has been confirmed, "they are still failing to comply with the contract." ” Therefore, the will of the government team is that “any decision adopted in this regard has all legal guarantees and the general interest of citizens prevails.”

Francis Muñoz has also stressed that "at the beginning of the month we said that this matter would be taken to the September plenary session and that is what we are going to do once all the procedures that correspond to a file like this have been carried out." The councilor regretted that "we have had to manage a bad list of conditions all these years that was approved in 2015 by the PSOE government on the eve of municipal elections."