Nearly 80% of colonies in the city of Puerto Vallarta are not being served with trash collection because the company holding the contract has yet to be paid $50 million pesos by the city.
Garbage piling in the streets is becoming a health hazard and source of infection for many residents of the city, and does not appear to be a settled issue before the high-season of tourism approaching.
The debt problem in Puerto Vallarta has been reoccurring for years, since the election of the Citizens Movement party, and has impacted basic services to resident.
Arturo Peña Dávalos, elected mayor of Puerto Vallarta by Citizens Movement, says the problem is the contract that was entered for services in the last PRI administration and the contracts needed to be renegotiated or revoked, but it’s been eight months without any progress.
This past week, the city recruited dozens of other workers in other departments to help in trash pickup throughout the city using private vehicles; however this effort still left most of the city with trash in the streets. In a city press release they state the company, Proactive, was not fulfilling their contract for trash pickup. Proactive maintains the problem is that the city has not fulfilled the contract and hasn’t paid for services.
More frustration over the lack of basic services have been expressed over the past several weeks as the city has unveiled plans for a multi-million revitalization of the Rio Cuale, announced plans for recycling, and the beginning of phase two for the Mirador de la Cruz project.
Development in the city is also high with the construction of more condominiums and shopping centers that will add to the current waste problem in the city if Puerto Vallarta’s government cannot make spending cuts to cover the sanitation of the city.
