LWMC-Turkish contractors row turns city roads into dumping sites

LAHORE : The ongoing fight between the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) with its Turkish contractors has turned the provincial metropolis into a large waste dumping site where heaps of garbage could be seen everywhere in the City.

Waste collection contract of LWMC with its two Turkish contractors is ending on December 31, 2020, and the company has decided not give it extension.

The company sources said this message was communicated to the Turkish contractors following which they started packing up. One of the two Turkish contractors, Albayrak Waste Management Company, has given final notices to its over 300 employees working in its head office while machinery and workforce were also pulled out from several union councils.

Similarly, Oz-Pak, the other Turkish contractor of LWMC, in response to a notice has demanded the LWMC pay arrears of millions of rupees and return vehicles, which were under the use of LWMC management and officers.

LWMC had given notices to Albayrak and Ozpak to hand over machinery and property at the end of the agreement this month. GM Procurement, LWMC, had asked for a schedule for handing over the machinery and property before December 31. In a letter, Ozpak has declared the LWMC’s desire to recall vehicles illegal while it also demanded mark-up on arrears from March 2, 2019. It also demanded refund of rental payment of the transfer stations of Valencia and Saggian. It also demanded payment of expenses incurred on manual sweeping, management cost and waste pick-up.

According to documents, Ozpak has demanded that the property tax paid so far for the Alexandria workshop should also be refunded. They said thirteen Ozpak vehicles, which were under the use of LWMC officials, should be returned. It also warned that they will contact International Court of Justice if LWMC didn’t fulfill the contractual obligations and refund the above mentioned arrears.

Chairman, LWMC, while talking to The News said three to four extensions were given to the Turkish contractors. He said LWMC was paying salaries to 16,000 sanitary staff, which was distributed among the Turkish contractors so there will be no difficulty in management of solid waste after the end of agreement with the Turkish contractors. He said both the contractors were using rental machinery and the same will be hired by LWMC. LWMC can save huge foreign exchange by itself doing solid waste management. Presently, we are paying to Turkish contractors in US $ but when we do this work ourselves we will pay in Pakistani rupee resulting in saving of huge money.

Talking about presence of waste on city roads, he said the transition period always has some difficulty but ultimately LWMC will come over the situation and things will improve in the next couple of weeks.