Showing posts with label Rubbish collection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rubbish collection. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Increase in Pollensa rubbish tax
Opposition groups have condemned what they say are broken elections promises on behalf of the Partido Popular-led town hall in Pollensa which plans to approve tax rises by 10% for domestic rubbish collection and by 27% for businesses.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Down In The Sewer: The rubbish corruption case
Here we go again. When I suggested that you shouldn't bet against the president of the Council of Mallorca offering a message about corruption at the end of 2011, I hadn't expected that a case would arise quite so quickly to support such a message. But it has.
Operación Cloaca. A cloaca is Latin for a sewer. Appropriate, you might think. "Cases of corruption keep coming to the surface with the regularity with which malodour filters out of a sewer cover." Hmm. This was what I said in "The Year Of Living Corruptly" (30 December).
The case involves allegations of false accounting in respect of waste-collection services across Mallorca. Implicated are businesspeople operating such services, the former director of waste management at the environment department of the Council of Mallorca and an economist and an engineer from the council.
The amount of money that is being said to have been "diverted" is staggering, anything up to 3.5 million euros, and the whole thing centres on what was going on at the waste-management division within the environment department at the council. The former councillor for environment was Catalina Julve, now the spokesperson for the Unió Mallorquina (UM) party.
There is an unfortunate familiarity about all this. The UM. One of those implicated, Simón Galmés, said to have charged a monthly 9,000 euros for work not undertaken, is a member of the Alianza Libre de Manacor-UM. It is also being said that, thanks to a friendship with Miguel Riera, the former mayor of Manacor and himself in the ALM-UM, Galmés's firm got the gig to be contracted to perform the inspection of waste. Riera, now no longer with us, was also the boss of the environment department before Julve. False invoices stopped being raised, it is further alleged, only once the UM was kicked out of governmental posts by the president of the regional government following the various corruption cases the party faced.
Of the various scandals that have erupted over the past couple of years, this one has the feeling of something different. It is less familiar in one respect. Though these scandals have involved the diversion of public funds, they have been at arm's length, away from ordinary householders and businesses.
This one is different because those ordinary householders and businesses pay taxes for waste collection and treatment. These taxes, that have risen significantly, are, not unnaturally, unpopular. And now we have a corruption case which suggests that a portion of the taxpayer's burden has gone directly into certain people's pockets. It brings it home - literally in this instance - the level of corruption and the extent to which it can affect any aspect of day-to-day living.
No one has been found guilty yet. But mud, or rubbish if you prefer, sticks. And as ever it is sticking to the UM. Here is a party that, following its expulsion, looked to try and re-invent itself and have done with the scandals that had attached themselves to it. However, it now has its spokesperson, in effect the number three in the party's current hierarchy, right in the firing-line.
It seemed inconceivable that the UM, discredited as it had been, could undergo a revival that might see it return to a position of power. Yet this has been happening. The doors had been opened once more to possible coalition government with Antich's socialists after this spring's elections. Had been. Perhaps it's time for them to be firmly shut.
And what of the electorate? Taxes, be they for rubbish or anything else, are an issue that plays with voters. They have a right to see that politicians don't play with their money, and if it is being played with, then those doing the playing need teaching a lesson. The elections are going to be difficult for the UM. And so they should be. They deserve nothing less. In fact, they deserve binning in the nearest container and waiting for the electoral rubbish collectors to come and dump them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Operación Cloaca. A cloaca is Latin for a sewer. Appropriate, you might think. "Cases of corruption keep coming to the surface with the regularity with which malodour filters out of a sewer cover." Hmm. This was what I said in "The Year Of Living Corruptly" (30 December).
The case involves allegations of false accounting in respect of waste-collection services across Mallorca. Implicated are businesspeople operating such services, the former director of waste management at the environment department of the Council of Mallorca and an economist and an engineer from the council.
The amount of money that is being said to have been "diverted" is staggering, anything up to 3.5 million euros, and the whole thing centres on what was going on at the waste-management division within the environment department at the council. The former councillor for environment was Catalina Julve, now the spokesperson for the Unió Mallorquina (UM) party.
There is an unfortunate familiarity about all this. The UM. One of those implicated, Simón Galmés, said to have charged a monthly 9,000 euros for work not undertaken, is a member of the Alianza Libre de Manacor-UM. It is also being said that, thanks to a friendship with Miguel Riera, the former mayor of Manacor and himself in the ALM-UM, Galmés's firm got the gig to be contracted to perform the inspection of waste. Riera, now no longer with us, was also the boss of the environment department before Julve. False invoices stopped being raised, it is further alleged, only once the UM was kicked out of governmental posts by the president of the regional government following the various corruption cases the party faced.
Of the various scandals that have erupted over the past couple of years, this one has the feeling of something different. It is less familiar in one respect. Though these scandals have involved the diversion of public funds, they have been at arm's length, away from ordinary householders and businesses.
This one is different because those ordinary householders and businesses pay taxes for waste collection and treatment. These taxes, that have risen significantly, are, not unnaturally, unpopular. And now we have a corruption case which suggests that a portion of the taxpayer's burden has gone directly into certain people's pockets. It brings it home - literally in this instance - the level of corruption and the extent to which it can affect any aspect of day-to-day living.
No one has been found guilty yet. But mud, or rubbish if you prefer, sticks. And as ever it is sticking to the UM. Here is a party that, following its expulsion, looked to try and re-invent itself and have done with the scandals that had attached themselves to it. However, it now has its spokesperson, in effect the number three in the party's current hierarchy, right in the firing-line.
It seemed inconceivable that the UM, discredited as it had been, could undergo a revival that might see it return to a position of power. Yet this has been happening. The doors had been opened once more to possible coalition government with Antich's socialists after this spring's elections. Had been. Perhaps it's time for them to be firmly shut.
And what of the electorate? Taxes, be they for rubbish or anything else, are an issue that plays with voters. They have a right to see that politicians don't play with their money, and if it is being played with, then those doing the playing need teaching a lesson. The elections are going to be difficult for the UM. And so they should be. They deserve nothing less. In fact, they deserve binning in the nearest container and waiting for the electoral rubbish collectors to come and dump them.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
A Load Of Rubbish
There are facts of interest, and then there facts of no interest at all. But, never let it be said that something of no interest prevents me from telling you about it.
Rubbish.
There’s a lot to be said for rubbish in Mallorca. Or at least its collection. First-rate. None of this two-weekly, maggot-ridden, tubercular, Third-World rubbish collection in benighted blighty. Every night here.
And, despite separate containers for recycling, don’t worry, just chuck it all in to the general container. Batteries, broken plastic garden furniture, nuclear waste. In it all goes. That’s my type of rubbish collection.
But, and now I come to the fact of no interest, there is other rubbish collection.
During the winter there was a beach rubbish-clearing exercise. Cost a cool 600,000 euros. No matter, this investment brought about a total collection of 168,757 kilos of rubbish. Impressive, huh?
Well, what is impressive is that great armies of the otherwise unwashed unemployed have seemingly had the job to count the rubbish. Rummaging around landfills with sets of scales, doubtless.
But where does it all go? I have the answer. It came to me after bumping into Paul Danks. As an accountant, I bow to his numeracy skills. The four thousand holes in Puerto Pollensa sounded an under-estimate to Paul. Probably right. But whatever the number, they can stuff them full of 168,757 kilos of beach rubbish.
Always in pursuit of some new bar or other that you should patronise, word up for Café Art 66 in Cala San Vicente. Strange place for a chill-out bar, given the blueness of the rinse of the average Cala tourist, but maybe the Cala will become this summer’s cool. Or maybe it won’t. Whatever, good luck to Ramon, it’s a very nice place.
Sitcom quiz – Blakey was of course played by Stephen Lewis. But now we’re back to the pop quiz. Here’s a belter, courtesy of Maconie and Radcliffe. Huge prizes. A copy of the Autocares Mallorca timetable to anyone who knows the name of the first white female artist to record for Motown. And … a copy also of the impenetrable Transunion bus timetable for Pollensa for those who also know the name of the first white male to record for Motown.
And while on Maconie and Radcliffe, they have given this blog its current record of 2007. Laura Veirs, “To The Country” from her CD “Saltbreakers”. Blissful.
(PLEASE REPLY TO info@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE. TA.)
Rubbish.
There’s a lot to be said for rubbish in Mallorca. Or at least its collection. First-rate. None of this two-weekly, maggot-ridden, tubercular, Third-World rubbish collection in benighted blighty. Every night here.
And, despite separate containers for recycling, don’t worry, just chuck it all in to the general container. Batteries, broken plastic garden furniture, nuclear waste. In it all goes. That’s my type of rubbish collection.
But, and now I come to the fact of no interest, there is other rubbish collection.
During the winter there was a beach rubbish-clearing exercise. Cost a cool 600,000 euros. No matter, this investment brought about a total collection of 168,757 kilos of rubbish. Impressive, huh?
Well, what is impressive is that great armies of the otherwise unwashed unemployed have seemingly had the job to count the rubbish. Rummaging around landfills with sets of scales, doubtless.
But where does it all go? I have the answer. It came to me after bumping into Paul Danks. As an accountant, I bow to his numeracy skills. The four thousand holes in Puerto Pollensa sounded an under-estimate to Paul. Probably right. But whatever the number, they can stuff them full of 168,757 kilos of beach rubbish.
Always in pursuit of some new bar or other that you should patronise, word up for Café Art 66 in Cala San Vicente. Strange place for a chill-out bar, given the blueness of the rinse of the average Cala tourist, but maybe the Cala will become this summer’s cool. Or maybe it won’t. Whatever, good luck to Ramon, it’s a very nice place.
Sitcom quiz – Blakey was of course played by Stephen Lewis. But now we’re back to the pop quiz. Here’s a belter, courtesy of Maconie and Radcliffe. Huge prizes. A copy of the Autocares Mallorca timetable to anyone who knows the name of the first white female artist to record for Motown. And … a copy also of the impenetrable Transunion bus timetable for Pollensa for those who also know the name of the first white male to record for Motown.
And while on Maconie and Radcliffe, they have given this blog its current record of 2007. Laura Veirs, “To The Country” from her CD “Saltbreakers”. Blissful.
(PLEASE REPLY TO info@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE. TA.)
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