Following countless complaints from residents and political parties in Torrevieja, which resulted in threats to terminate the contract awarded to the company responsible for fumigating the municipality against mosquitos, the town hall has now launched an emergency action plan to deal with the situation.
The Councillor for Health and Public Health, Diana Box, reports that this new contract complements the current one, processed by the previous government team in 2017, now, 5 years later, considered totally insufficient by the town hall in cases such as those that occurred recently.
The new service that has already begun to work has considerable improvements such as: a Stream cannon, a Typhoons cannon, two larvicide equipment and an exclusive equipment for parks and gardens.
Diana Box announces that a monthly pest control plan has also been contracted that will allow the mosquito population to be monitored in order to control all outbreaks at the larval level, preventing massive hatching of adult mosquitoes.
The result is that it is necessary and urgent to increase services, according to the councillor, by approximately 73% of their current amount, to a total figure of 100,000 euro.
Given the fact that this extension is not legally possible, the Council of Torrevieja is currently processing the termination of the current contract with the agreement of the contractor, and that is why the Local Government Board agreed to award the reinforcement of the same by “Emergencia” until a new one is awarded with all the necessary services to carry out an effective control.
The reinforcement of existing services consists of two parts; an emergency action plan and a control plan. The Emergency Action Plan will be activated whenever there is accumulated rainfall exceeding 20 l / m2 according to technical criteria. This limit is established as a criterion from which waterlogging occurs that is the ideal place where the biological hatchings of mosquitoes occur. Therefore, every time the environmental circumstances conducive to the explosion of this biological bomb occur, the aforementioned plan, whose value amounts to €43,404, will be activated in order to prevent the progression of the mosquito population as a result of favourable environmental conditions.
On the other hand, Diana Box also states that a monthly pest control plan has been contracted that will allow the mosquito population to be monitored in order to control all foci at the larval level, preventing massive hatching of adult mosquitoes, whose value amounts to €15,573.
This emergency contract will be maintained until the current contract is terminated and a new one awarded that already incorporates all the mechanisms, means and design necessary to control all pests in the municipality. At this time, the contractor has already given its agreement to the termination of the contract, so the economic settlement is pending, being in turn in processing the new contract for the urgent procedure, in order to be able to reach its award during the coming months.
Finally, the councillor apologises to all citizens for the problems that are causing this proliferation of mosquitoes and hopes that in the coming days there will be a considerable improvement and this plague can be completely eradicated.
It should also be noted that the anti-corruption prosecutor is investigating previous mosquito control contracts awarded by Torrevieja town hall, and so this matter has no doubt been approached with some caution.
