The former mayor of Orihuela, Emilio Bascuñana, came out on Friday, to call for an explanation into the fiasco surrounding the absence of mandatory vehicle insurance, which forced the Street Cleaning and MSW workers to leave their fleet of vehicles parked up in their depots, and the municipality with hundreds of bins full of uncollected rubbish.
All municipal vehicles belonging to the waste collection service were parked up on Tuesday evening when information came to light confirming that vehicle insurance policies had not been renewed following their expiry on 22 December last year, as a result of which the collection of waste was abandoned.
A spokesman said that the staff were completely unaware of the situation but when rumours began to circulate a simple check of vehicle license plates in council databases confirmed the situation to be true.
Bascuñana, said that the problem is not only with RSU vehicles but with the entire municipal vehicle fleet. “This is a very serious problem and we want to know how long the people of Orihuela are going to have to put up with this, and with a mayor, a government team, including Ciudadanos, who continually side-step their responsibilities and leave us stranded.”
On Wednesday, the day following the walk out by RSU workers, Mayoress Carolina Gracia appeared at a hastily arranged Press Conference to tell everybody that it was simply an ‘oversight’ and that the matter was now resolved.
She said that that “an irregularity” had been found with the insurance of all municipal vehicles, which affected all council departments, but that it would be resolved during the day.
As such the staff went back to work and The Wednesday overnight collections were carried out as normal.
However, on the following day, Thursday, just before midnight, shortly after the overnight shift got underway, all RSU trucks were once again returned to their depots following information passed to the unions, the UGT and CCOO union, from the Guardia Civil, Local Police and the insurer, that the vehicles still did not have the mandatory insurance.
One employee told the press, as he was preparing to fill out a report confirming that he had reported to work, but was unable to carry out his duties because of the lack of insurance, “we feel abandoned, they have lied to us.”
Bascuñana went on to say that holding a press conference to flagrantly lie to the public is beyond belief, and now he is demanding that explanations be given, that responsibilities are apportioned and that those responsible be held to account.
“People have the right to know what has and what does not have insurance and what would have happened if a public employee had an accident.”
He goes on to point out that this is not a one-off issue, but despite a PP demand for explanations the government has refused to answer.
“It is urgent that the Councillor for Heritage, José Aix, be dismissed, and that the mayoress resigns”. In addition, Bascuñana hopes that the General Directorate of Traffic will act after acknowledging that the vehicles had been driving around without insurance for three months.
It would also appear that the Labour Inspectorate has opened a file to find out what has happened with the compulsory insurance of municipal employees.
Uncertainty reigned all day Friday until minutes before the start of the overnight shift, when the workers were finally told that the policies had been issued.
In a statement issue by the mayoress, also on Friday, she said that she had not lied in her previous announcement, as the insurance had been issued earlier in the week “but these things take time.” She also stated that the Council regretted the inconvenience caused!
