More than half of Malta’s local councils will soon end up without a contractor to landscape their gardens and public areas after consortium ELC informed them of its plans not to renew its contracts.
This has sent councils into disarray, with many of them scrambling to see how they are going to continue landscaping their localities using the limited budget available.
Sources said the Environmental Landscapes Consortium had informed councils – some of them months ago – that it did not intend renewing their contract.
The ELC has been operating since 2003 to improve the landscaping and general maintenance of public areas and gardens in the country.
ELC’s public private partnership was due to expire at the end of the year and workers are still in the dark about their future.
When contacted, a spokesman for ELC confirmed the entity was in the process of concluding its contracts with a total of 38 councils, which it had informed of its intention not to continue providing the service.
“We are nearing the end of our term and we are re-thinking our strategy with regard to providing services to local councils for a number of reasons, which include personnel and the financial aspect of our operations.
“These contracts were never money-earners to us but we need to safeguard the consortium’s interests too, and we cannot continue operating certain contracts at a loss,” he told Times of Malta on Friday.
Local Councils’ Association president Mario Fava said the association was aware of the situation affecting the councils where the ELC was the main supplier.
He said councils now had to issue a call for tenders for landscaping their gardens and public spaces.
Some councils, especially the small ones and those with a few public spaces to maintain, could get away with issuing a landscaping direct order, provided it is capped at €5,000 annually.
However, the larger councils had to issue a call for tenders, with the price expected to be steeper than the prices charged by ELC, which kept its prices low because it was the government’s main contractor for the upkeep of areas which do not fall under the councils’ responsibility.
“In the eventuality that no one from the private sector submits a tender, then we’d have to see how we’re going to deal with it. I intend starting talks with the Environment Ministry about this matter,” Mr Fava said.
The Naxxar local council is one of the localities which had the ELC as its landscaping contractor.
When contacted, mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami said the council had issued a call for quotations for emergency works and to water flowers and trees that had not yet dried up in the August heat.
“We got quotations from private operators as a short-term measure because many plants and patches in the locality dried up already. In the long term, we are awaiting direction on how to proceed to replace the ELC which was giving us a wonderful service at a very reasonable price,” she said.
“I’m not sure how the council will afford it in the future. We’ll have to wait and see.”
matthew.xuereb@timesofmalta.com