Alina Oprea • 12 June, 2023 at 9:30 AM
Mayor Dominic Fritz announced that the Municipality has paid its environmental payment obligations for the 2016-2020 period. The City Hall of Timisoara paid last week the last installment of the obligations of RON5.6 million (€1.12 million) calculated by the Environmental Fund Administration (AFM), for the mentioned interval. The mayor stated that an audit carried out in 2021 found massive differences between the amounts of waste declared by the former administration as being deposited/recycled in the period 2016-2020 and the actual amounts deposited/recycled. The mayor explained that in the period 2016-2020, the former administration declared 131,000 tons of waste recycled, but AFM inspectors found that in fact only 30,000 tons were recycled.
"I finished paying what was not recycled seven years ago. Because those back then declared on paper that they recycled more than they did in reality, it cost us now over RON5 and a half million (€1.1 million), including penalties. They are not the only ones. We still pay monthly installments for the gas consumed seven to eight years ago. We put an end to this harmful way of running the city and managed to restore the credibility of the administration as an honest partner that assumes its obligations", said Mayor Dominic Fritz.
According to him, between 2016-2020, the former administration declared that almost 527,000 tons of waste were stored, but in reality, this amount was 612,000 tons.
For these false reports, the Environmental Fund Administration calculated payment obligations and penalties of RON4.3 million (€860,000), the value of the amounts of undeclared municipal waste, plus RON1.3 million (€260,000) in penalties. These were staggered in 12 monthly installments for the period July 2022 – June 2023, each installment having a total value of RON469,924 (€93,984).
Timisoara City Hall signed financing contracts through European funds through PNRR to improve the selective collection of waste in the city. The value of these contracts amounts to RON52 million (€10.4 million). Through these funds, the administration is preparing the installation of 100 digital islands of separate collection, as well as the construction of four voluntary collection centers.