The mayors of Greater Santo Domingo together with the United Dominican Federation of Municipalities (Fedomu) have rejected a unilateral increase in the price of collecting garbage and warned that the decision will create an unprecedented sanitary crisis.
In a public declaration the mayors confirmed that Lajun, the company in charge of the Duquesa site where garbage is disposed, has imposed an unacceptable increase of between 130% and 1,100% in some cases per ton of solid waste dumped at their site.
Radhames Castro, mayor of Boca Chica and spokesman for the mayors, explained that in Los Alcarrizos alone, the amount for garbage collection had increased from RD$160,000 to RD$1,700,000 and in the National District from RD$7 million to RD$16,000,000 per month, as reported in Diario Libre.
Castro said that they would never accept policies such as these that would allow the company to put in place unilateral fee increases without consulting the municipal governments.
The mayors agreed to propose a meeting with President Danilo so that the President could weigh in on the problem. The hope is that through political pressure, Lajun would back-down from its demand for disposal rate increases, thus avoiding a crisis of such a proportion never before seen in Greater Santo Domingo.
Among those mayors who signed the document are Rene Polanco, Santo Domingo North; David Collado, National District; Alfredo Martinez, Santo Domingo East; Junior Santos, Los Alcarrizos; Francisco Pena, Santo Domingo West; Nelson Guillen, San Cristobal; Osvaldo Rodriguez, Haina; Menudo Perez, Nigua; Marcia Rosario, Guerra; Pascual Gomez, Pedro Gomez and Rafael Hidalgo, president of FEDOMU.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
7 Dias
22 February 2017
