Garbage overpaid: Montreal judge the situation “unacceptable”

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Sarah Daoust-Braun

Monday, 19 march 2018 14:24

UPDATE
Monday, 19 march, 2018 19:12

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The City of Montreal plans to continue the company that charged for burying waste in other cities and promises to correct the shooting to avoid further slippages.

“It is unacceptable that Montrealers are paying for the garbage from other municipalities,” said the mayor of Montréal, Valérie Plante, who is said to be open to use all possible means to recover the money stolen from the taxpayers.

The Office of the inspector general (ig) revealed Friday in a report-shock that the company’s Environmental Services Richelieu (S. E. R) was made to pay to the city of the trash she collected in some towns in the Montérégie region, such as Brossard, Beloeil and Boucherville.

These wastes were then mixed with those of the boroughs of Verdun and South-West, where the company was responsible for the collection of garbage since 2008.

For the moment, the City is not in a position to calculate the amount it would have paid in too much. According to the S. E. R., the losses would only be a few thousand dollars.

According to the head of service to the citizens, Jean-François Parenteau, the city would have also had to collect a rebate from the supplier, approximately $ 100,000 per year, for the decrease of the amount of waste collected, which never happened.

Tighten the screw

According to the oig, S. E. A. has been able to implement his scheme due to the poor management of the City of Montreal. The data of the GPS on the pickup trucks of trash there were, for example not always checked.

“We must ensure that an accountability framework more closely in the future,” said Jean-François Parenteau.

According to Montreal, the two districts have already adjusted their ways of doing in order to avoid that such a situation does not occur again, and explore other possible solutions.

Worried by this situation, the mayor of Beloeil, Diane Lavoie, has ensured that his city – which hosts the head office of S. E. R. – has gone to great lengths to avoid this kind of fraud.

“We have a person dedicated to waste roaming around in the 11 municipalities in the MRC of la Vallée-Richelieu to check where the trucks leave and what they take, in addition to having the GPS data from the trucks,” she explained.

The official opposition requires that the City of Montreal tightens the screw and has a greater degree of rigour in the use of its monitoring data.

“It is appalling to see that companies always manage to defraud the City. It is important to be alert and never let your guard down,” commented the acting head of the Whole Montreal, Lionel Perez.