Is Sanitek Taking Money Out? - Haik Marutyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan presented a working meeting with Yerevan Mayor Haik Marutyan via a Facebook live stream. The topic of discussion was waste management issues.

Nikol Pashinyan inquired why such problems had emerged with waste management in Yerevan, to which Haik Marutyan replied: “During the pre-election period, waste management was one of the main issues in the programs of all parties, but I must note that the condition of waste management was worse back then than it is now. This is a systemic problem. The first mistake of the previous municipal authorities was that they delegated waste collection operations to a single company, and there was no safety cushion.”

According to the Mayor, the city was divided into two parts for waste collection. In 2013, the contest for the waste collection in the Western part was won by 'Sanitek', and the same company won the competition for the second part in 2015.

“One company was given the responsibility for waste collection and snow removal in the entire city. The city’s infrastructure has been destroyed; everything was given to one company. In meetings with other mayors, I asked everyone—never have I encountered a situation where one operator manages waste collection in other developed cities,” noted Haik Marutyan.

According to the mayor, the contracts with 'Sanitek' are signed properly and are beneficial and balanced for both the city council and 'Sanitek'. He stated that both parties are protected.

“But we see that 'Sanitek' failed; the reasons are various. The objective reason is that the company is not well-versed in the field. They claimed in the tender that they had experience working in Lebanon and Nigeria, but the director recently stated in a press conference that they had worked in Turkey and Algeria. It’s unclear. This company objectively cannot perform its work,” he said.

Haik Marutyan indicated that the city council's only obligation, according to the contract, is to allocate funds to 'Sanitek' for its services. The mayor assures that the funds are transferred within the stipulated time frames.

“One of the reasons for this situation is that their fleet is broken and dilapidated. The contract mentions 16,000 metal trash bins, but there are only 5,000 bins in total in the city, of which 99 are metal. We have fined them for poor service delivery. They claim the fines are baseless and have taken us to court. They say these have affected our operations, but our fines are only 3 percent of the total amount we provided to them. To ensure they don’t completely vanish, we are not taking more drastic measures. In our negotiations with them, I told them that we have no intention of removing them from the market. They told me that the service fee needs to be increased; I said I could not do that. Instead, I suggested we break these two contracts and announce a new tender, allowing them to propose their higher price, and if no lower price is offered, they can win again. 'Sanitek' did not agree to this suggestion,” the mayor clarified.

Regarding the council's other proposal to purchase and lease vehicles with the municipal budget, 'Sanitek' initially agreed, but later started delaying the process, according to the mayor: “This raised suspicions for me that they are taking the money out. That is, they receive the same amount of money, do not provide appropriate services, and the money is increasing.”

The city council has already commenced the procurement process for waste collection vehicles. By the council's decision, the communal organization 'Yerevan Waste Collection and Cleaning' has been established. Haik Marutyan announced that the city authorities have already acquired 16 KamAZ waste collection vehicles and ordered 10 more. The city hall has also ordered 8,000 trash bins, of which 400 are already in Yerevan. By August 15, another 1,800 bins will be in Yerevan, with the entire batch expected by December.

“We constantly urge 'Sanitek' to cooperate with us. In Davtashen, we brought the bins, wanted to replace them, sent a letter to 'Sanitek', but received no response. Eventually, they replied, ‘Don’t touch our bins; they are our property, and you have nothing to do with our bins.’ The solution is as follows: we must solve this issue in the near future. The city authorities will not allow waste management to be carried out in this manner,” said Haik Marutyan.