The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Greener Way a waste management company has alleged that Thimphu District Municipality (TDM) has chosen USD for the collection and disposal of waste of the North Zone at Nu.445,000 per month for a period of 5 years, while Greener Way was offering it at Nu.231,000 per month.
Greener Way has appealed to the Ministry of Finance which is looking into the issue before the work is formally awarded to USD.
The CEO of Greener Way Karma Yonten pointed out that the Thromde and government will stand to lose Nu 12.84 mn with this deal.
Greenway previously won the contract of the same work of the Central and South Zone for Nu. 1 million per month. Karma Yonten, argued that any layman could compare the size of the North Zone, which occupies only about 20% if the city, with the Central and Southern Zone. “The Northern Zone’s work indeed does not deserve Nu. 445,000 per month by any rationale and logic”, he said. “We are immensely de-motivated to perform the current work as well with the same zeal and zest.”
The CEO also emphasized that this was the misuse of tax payer’s money. He said, “We will not let this happen by any means from our side because there are high chances of collusion between the concerned Thromde officials and the contractor.”
He also said, “We believe we have given hundred percent of diligence to keep Thimphu clean and green, but we are really disheartened with this illogical news. And this is because of poor and weak concerned authorities who are willing to tender out this work with such irrational price.”
The objective of outsourcing of the waste collection, according to the Thromde, is to reduce financial burden on the government and to increase the effectiveness of the service. The capital, which is divided into three zones; South, Central and North, alone generates 50 tones of wastes per day.
Private entities will only collect and dispose the waste in the landfill and TDM monitors the work closely.An official at TDM hasn’t made any comment about its decision so far. After several visits and calls to the thromde office, the concerned thromde officials did not respond to The Bhutanese.
