Albayrak pays over $5m fine for not collecting door-to-door waste

LAHORE :Albayrak Waste Management Company, one of the two Turkish contractors of Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC), has paid heavy fine amounting US$5,032,071 instead of fulfilling its contractual obligation of door-to-door waste collection.

Statistics collected by The News revealed that the Turkish company paid US$9,927,399 as penalties and deductions from March 2012 until June, 2017. The documents available with The News also revealed that total penalty imposed on the company during this period was US$5,032,071 while other deductions were US$4,895,328.

Figures suggested that during the above-mentioned period, Albayrak Waste Management Company claimed a total bill worth US$109,064,930 out of which LWMC verified the bill worth US$104,040,381.

Spokesperson for Albayrak Waste Management Company was asked about the penalties and statistics were also shared with her via email but her reply was, “As discussed with you verbally, we have explained door-to-door collection mechanism. If you want I can share further information about the operations. However, we will not be able to share financial statements of the company nor do we have liberty of sharing business transactions.”

In September, The News highlighted that both the two Turkish contractors of LWMC were not performing their contractual obligations of door-to-door waste collection. The issue was popped up on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha when LWMC sent mass text messages to the citizens urging them to throw/dump animal waste in company’s designated areas as well as dustbins.

Citizens said door-to-door waste collection is the prime job of LWMC and its Turkish contractors but they are discouraging this practice. Several citizens especially living in slums alleged that waste collection from their areas is a dream cum true.

A senior LWMC official seeking anonymity said that door-to-door collection of domestic waste is a prime requirement of the contracts of two Turkish contractors and in case they failed to complete this task LWMC can impose heavy fine on them as per contract. He said Article 15 of the contract agreement signed between both the Turkish contractors (Oz-Pak and Albayrak) and LWMC is related to Penalties and Terminations.

Sources said that clause (f) states, “Failure to collect domestic waste from door-to-door collection areas and not conducting any activity to resolve the problem within eight hours of detection, a penalty in amount of USD 50/incident shall be applied,” while clause (i) of the contract agreement states, “Any domestic waste must be collected even if it is not in a container. Failure to collect domestic waste left on roads or streets in 24 hours, a penalty in the amount of USD 50/incident shall be applied.”

On the other hand, one can witness scavengers riding donkey carts collecting domestic waste from majority of the residential and commercial localities of the city especially from the LDA governed area, which is the direct jurisdiction of Oz-Pak and Albayrak waste management companies.

These scavengers are charging Rs300 to Rs400 per house per month from the citizens for collecting domestic waste from their doors whereas the Punjab government is also paying a huge subsidy to LWMC. Before the conception of LWMC, the annual budget of Solid Waste Department was around 03 billion/year whereas the annual budget of LWMC is around Rs13 billion/year.

Urbanisation experts believed that as per a rough estimate around one million city residents are paying Rs300/month which means scavengers are collecting Rs300,000,000 per month and around Rs3,600,000,000/year, which is a huge amount.

Managing Director LWMC Bilal Mustafa Syed said the company has developed SOPs for door-to-door collection and heavy fines are being imposed on the contractors. He said no leniency will be adopted towards the contractors in this regard.

On the other hand, Albayrak’s spokesperson in a long written statement claimed that door-to-door collection is a mechanism of collecting household waste from the doorsteps. It is part of regular waste management field operations.

“Albayrak is carrying the service in several union councils of the city with the help of mini dumpers, wheelie bins, handcarts and compactors. Albayrak is providing door-to-door collection services, achieving its task as mentioned in the contract,” she claimed and added that in certain areas of the city, 100 percent waste collection was done on door-to-door basis. One such example is waste management in Walled City where the streets are narrow and customised solutions are the need of the place.

For door-to-door operations, additional machinery has been deployed by Albayrak Waste Management. The company was obliged to deploy eight mini dumpers in Zone 1 of Lahore. However, keeping in view the needs of the waste management system and on the requests of the public representatives and the client company Albayrak has injected 73 mini dumpers in different UCs of the City. This was in accordance with the previous UC system. Under previous system, 72 UCs fell in Zone 1 of Lahore where Albayrak is providing services. The mini dumpers work in two shifts in the city, she maintained.

As opposed to 500 wheelie bins and 1,000 hand carts, as agreed upon in the contract, Albayrak has provided 1,191 wheelie bins and 3,768 handcarts. To further facilitate the public, 6,628 containers have been placed in the Zone 1 as compared to 4,745 containers as asked of company in the contract, she claimed.

She said as per contract the company has to distribute garbage bags to local public for initial five months only to encourage proper waste management. She concluded that however, the company has continued the practice in various areas of the city keeping in view slow change in behaviour of the masses.