Declaration of Winning Waste Management Bids Postponed as Activists Scuffle with Police

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  • W460
  • W460
  • W460
  • W460

A committee tasked with evaluating waste management tenders on Wednesday postponed declaring the winning bids pending further assessment, as anti-trash protesters scuffled with security forces outside the Council for Development and Reconstruction where the meeting was held.

“It is necessary to have more than one evaluation for every region,” said Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq after the meeting.

“The declaration of the winning bids has been postponed to Tuesday for further evaluations,” he said.

Meanwhile, security forces fired water cannons to disperse dozens of protesters from the You Stink campaign after some of them tried to remove the barricades and barbed wire outside the CDR and the Grand Serail.

Protesters shouted slogans against the authorities over the failure to address the garbage crisis as some of them hurled eggs towards the Grand Serail.

Four protesters were arrested during the clashes of whom one was eventually released.

Clashes renewed in the evening as security forces used batons to disperse the demonstrators.

The You Stink anti-trash campaign said on its Facebook page that the activist Bilal Allaw was critically wounded after he was beaten by security forces. He was rushed to the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

It also said three activists were still detained, identifying them as Lucien Bourjeily, Hassan Shamas and Waref Suleiman.

The protesters vowed that they will not end their sit-in at the Riad al-Solh Square before the release of all detainees.

Mashnouq had earlier asserted that bids to solve the waste crisis would be opened and declared on Wednesday, assuring that the state will help in finding dumping ground.

“We have a sufficient number of bids that were presented to help solve the waste crisis and they will be opened and announced today with transparency,” he told An Nahar daily.

“The state will help in finding disposal grounds,” he assured.

“Today we will move from the stage of preparation to the stage of implementation starting with sweeping, landfilling and management,” said Mashnouq, adding “the bids that will be announced today have been studied thoroughly by international consultancy firms and have been evaluated technically, financially and legally.”

Mashnouq stressed that the tenders included all Lebanese regions.

On the role of the cabinet following the bid openings, Mashnouq said: “The ministerial committee will submit a report to the government and inform it on the results. The Council for Development and Reconstruction will later sign the contracts with the winning firms.”

Early in August, three private firms offered bids to manage Beirut’s waste without stating a clear disposing ground.

In July and following the closure of the Naameh landfill, which receives the waste of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, a waste management crisis erupted and continues until today.

Several regions have refused to take and bury any of the capital’s waste as a substitute for Naameh.

Municipalities have therefore been dumping garbage randomly in forests, on river banks, and valleys.

D.A./Y.R.

M.T.

SourceNaharnet
Comments 12
Thumb saturn 19 August 2015, 09:41

One contract for you, one contract for me... Take your time, garbage isn't piling up. What garbage?

Thumb canadianpaul 20 August 2015, 00:29

I agree. This is a farce. If the bids are legal and technically sound, as declared, why do you need a second bidder per region? Who can prepare such a bid in less than 4 business days? Fishy, fishy, fishy...

Thumb lebanon_first 19 August 2015, 16:00

On river banks. Not on bank rivers

Thumb shab 19 August 2015, 18:51

The filthy murdering militia are embarrassed

Thumb EagleDawn 19 August 2015, 20:06

mind your language!!!!

Missing imagine_1979 19 August 2015, 20:06

I concieve that terrorist coment was not adequate a litle sectarian and very much "mal place" but why would u think he cheers for assyr?
Maybe he thinks the same of assir and ur shiite milicia curently batteling in syria irak maybe yemen under the banner of ya hussein, and this was all over the media so stop bulshiting us about protecting lebanon
They just engaged in the same nonsense middle age rethoric that assir and he's like
U support the same kind of people and whatever u say cannot change the fact that they are a sectarian millicia who remplaced the national lebanese revolution front to their ISLAMIC resistance
Sectarian millicia that follow the comand of suprem leadder khomaini and nasralah said it , suleimani went even more...
And u come lecture us man?...

Thumb EagleDawn 19 August 2015, 20:07

I hope these sectarian terrorists did not suffer too much teeeeeheeeeeheeeee:D

Missing imagine_1979 19 August 2015, 20:07

And btw southern ur coment was totaly irrelevent with regard to this article but again...

Thumb EagleDawn 19 August 2015, 20:17

why when mughniyyeh was blown to pieces Manar announced it on TV and why when the sectarian militia murders syrians, Manar announces it.... or are they not obituaries? LOL

Thumb -phoenix1 19 August 2015, 20:41

I always said it, these ministers, be they M8 or m14 have no clue of things, ya wazeyr, it's not dumping, the buzz word is Recycling, the Lebanese indeed have gold in their trash yet everyone wants to open a restaurant, ya Wazeyr, RECYCLING, that what we want.

Missing imagine_1979 19 August 2015, 21:04

Hence: "a little" sectarian...

Missing imagine_1979 19 August 2015, 21:07

And again terrorist being pro democracy i can concieve that anyone has the right to believe whatever they want and dress as they desire as long as they donnit force the rest of the population to act like them..
And also not to drag the whole population in a war under the comand of very secular khomaini to help very democratic assad and all of this under the banner of ya hussein...
And they come lecture us...Retards....