By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 19 May 2015:
The Libyan government has authorized the Local Government Ministry to contract directly through a (non-open . . .[restrict]tender) purchase order process with Swedish company, Nordic Waste Services, specializing in the cleaning of cities, public parks and gardens, pest control, waste collection and recycling.
The decision was made during its cabinet meeting held on Sunday in the eastern city of Al-Beida, the seat of Libya’s only internationally recognized government.
Libyan towns and cities have experienced numerous problems with rubbish collection since 2011, including industrial action by unpaid state-sector rubbish collectors.
The announcement by the Thinni government to contract out to a foreign company for rubbish collection and recycling is not a new policy decision.
As was reported by Libya Herald in January this year, the Thinni government had reported then that it had approved the use of international companies in dealing with rubbish and recycling.
The approval to sign ‘’contracts with international companies’’ for cleaning services and rubbish recycling in January was to give priority to companies in the rubbish collection sector first.
Equally, it was stated at the time that these contracts would stipulate the condition that foreign companies would receive no-upfront payments and no payments for the first six months of the contract.
In the first stage of the contracts, the companies would be obliged to gather rubbish in pre-approved sites, thereafter the companies could move to the second stage of the contract of recycling.
Contracted companies would also be obliged to train or retrain the current employees of the General Services Company – the state company currently tasked with rubbish collection.
It must be recalled that British firm Rentokil had been operating in Libya prior to the 2011 revolution, but the company had suspended its operations when the Libyan authorities failed to pay it its debts. [/restrict]
