Fight over landfill rights in Bogotá
By Daniel Brody, Editorial Director
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The selection of a Brazilian/Canadian company to manage the Doña Juana landfill turned into a fight on Tuesday.
The local Special Administrative Unit of Public Services (UAESP) had all the proposals from various companies to manage the landfill in envelopes in a box.
The director of that local agency, Myriam Martinez, drew one of the envelopes and announced the winner of the eleven-year,
230 billion peso contract, Centro de Gerenciamiento de Residuos Doña Juana, and that's when the meeting exploded into a fight.
At the moment the contract was awarded, a lawyer named Jaime Lombana from the competing firm that had previously operated the landfill, shouted that the process was an "injustice," and that judges would have the last word on who managed the landfill.
He further shouted that the envelopes with each company's management proposal were not the same as the ones handed in on
April 30th, which was the deadline for submission.
Lombrana then went over to the table where the winning company was seated and proceeded to smack the documents out of the hands of each of the company's representatives.
Another losing company's representative, David Cardona from Unión Temporal Gestión Ambiental, then joined in the fray, yelling that he had taped a 2,000-peso bill to his company's envelope, and that it was no longer there.
"They changed the envelopes!" he bellowed.
The audience then began shouting the name of the winning company's lawyer, Álvaro Dávila, and chanting "Long live the cartel!" at the members of his company.
Myriam Martinez then called the police and the prosecutor's office to help take control of the situation. She also suspended the awarding of the contract for maintaining the landfill until authorities could investigate whether the selection process had been handled fairly and transparently.
Located in the Usme sector in southern Bogotá, the Doña Juana landfill handles about six thousand tons of garbage every day.
Its near future includes a controversial plan to expand the landfill, and local residents have complained for years about the effect it has on local land and water.
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