Unions blame Emaya management for Palma uncleanliness

Rubbish being allowed to accumulate in Palma.

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma15/08/2017 00:00

Jesús González, the president of the Emaya works committee, says that current deficiencies with waste collection and street cleaning in Palma are the result of poor management over the past eight years. The operations of the city's municipal services agency are hampered, he believes, by the absence of political consensus. The town hall needs to arrive at agreement among the political parties and to have a ten-year plan. A problem is that it is impossible to make the system effective when it is changed each time there is a new administration.

González maintains that there are insufficient resources. At present, it takes up to four days to act on complaints about, for example, waste not being collected. These used to be cleared up within 48 hours. The budget that the Emaya board assigns is too low, while workers' salaries have been frozen for ten years.

The board has in fact invested some 18 million euros, but it is not only the workers who believe that this is not enough. So also does the federation of residents' associations. Its president, Joan Forteza, says that collection schedules are not being met. He points out that rubbish which overflows from containers is allowed to accumulate for 24 hours. With the heat, this means smells.

The federation adds that residents have to sometimes take it upon themselves to remove weeds and clean the streets. Emaya accepts that there are complaints and that in June and July these were mainly about overflowing rubbish.

González notes that service quality is depleted because of a lack of personnel. Workers have to deal with rubbish that has accumulated on the streets, which has an impact on regular collections. Residents blame the workers, he says, but they have to understand how tasks are allocated.