EGTT Dominicana, the company that formerly handled Santo Domingo Este municipality’s garbage collection, disputes the statement made by Mayor Domingo Batista which said the company was billing RD$16 million a month for the service, as reported yesterday in DR1 Daily News. “On average, the French company has been billing approximately 10,000 tons a month times US$23.00 – equivalent to a monthly bill of US$230,000 – and less than half the Major’s statement!” according to Henri Hebrard, spokesman for EGTT.
As per one EGTT executive’s statement to the press yesterday, the company is encouraging the press to ask the Mayor what happened to the difference between what he is claiming he paid to the French company and what they have in fact received.
EGTT claims more than US$600,000 for services performed since the second half of June. It also says penalties and interests for approximately US$30,000 must be added, as well as around US$170,000 for exchange rate differences since the Mayor refused to pay the official Central Bank FX Rate, despite the contractual agreement, and instead was using a rate of RD$25 to US$1.
The French company placed an embargo on the bank accounts of Santo Domingo Este on Friday, 26 September, claiming a debt of RD$23 million. According to a report in Hoy newspaper, the Mayor Batista has offered to pay RD$7 million to settle the legal conflict.
On the other hand, Domingo Jimenez, spokesman for the PLD aldermen at city hall, wrote to Hoy newspaper to clarify that while the PLD representatives voted in favor to rescind the EGTT contract, the representatives also supported the formation of a multi-party commission to investigate the PLD claim of nepotism between EGTT officers and high-ranking officers of the city government – including relatives of Batista – and urged an investigation into the management of the financial operations of the company. During a municipal government session, a majority of councilors, of both PRSC and PRD parties, instead opted to rescind the contract, without endorsing the proposal to review the alleged irregularities in the municipality’s finances in connection to the million-peso amounts paid to EGTT that have recently been made public.