THE Cebu City Council authorized Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday to sign the memorandum of agreement with Pasajero Motors Corp. (Pamocor) for the City’s garbage disposal services from February to June.
Pamocor is the winning bidder that currently handles the garbage hauling and disposal of the city.
The City is paying the private service provider P1,248 for every ton of garbage they disposed of.
However, before the Council approved the agreement yesterday, several opposition councilors expressed concern on how the City can counter-check the weight of the garbage being thrown to the private landfills.
Councilors Jose Daluz III and Joel Garganera said the City should ask Pamocor to dispose of the garbage in a private landfill in Aloguinsan instead of Consolacion.
This is because the City has no way of verifying the tons of garbage being thrown to the private landfill in Consolacion because the City’s weighing scale is not functional.
The councilors wanted the Department of Public Services (DPS) to have their own record on the weight of garbage that Pamocor hauled before it will be disposed of in a private landfill, for counter-checking.
“We have to insist, we have to call the attention of the service provider because it’s very dangerous if there’s no way of counter-checking,” Daluz said.
DPS Chief Roberto Cabarrubias said that under the terms of reference of the contract for the garbage disposal, it will be up to Pamocor to decide where to dispose of the garbage they hauled from the city.
Right now, Pamocor is disposing of the garbage in the private landfills in Consolacion and Aloguinsan.
Cabarrubias said he assigned personnel to monitor the trips of the trucks of Pamocor in Consolacion and Aloguinsan, but they cannot monitor the weight of the garbage being thrown in two private landfills.
“We can only monitor in Aloguinsan because there is a public weighing scale in Minglanilla that we are using. But in Consolacion, our personnel cannot get inside the landfill, that is why we can only monitor the trips of the trucks,” he said.
For 15 months already, the weighing scale of the city, which is currently placed at the old Inayawan Sanitary Landfill, has not functioned.
Councilor Eugenio Gabuya Jr. said the City is buying another weighing scale.
“Within the year, we will have that new weighing scale already,” he said. (RVC)