The Mijas Town Hall has opened seven sanctioning files in 2026 against the UTE FCC Barbetium, awarded the street cleaning contract, with penalties exceeding 6 million euros. Additionally, it has deducted 306,942 euros from the certifications for services not rendered.
The Street Cleaning Area of the Mijas Town Hall has opened seven sanctioning files so far in 2026 against the UTE FCC Barbetium, awarded the street cleaning and waste collection service, with total penalties exceeding 6 million euros. This figure is in addition to 306,942 euros deducted from the monthly certifications for services that the company failed to provide.
Two of the files are classified as very serious: the repeated failure to provide scheduled ordinary services and the breach of obligations regarding the implementation of the service and the facilities committed in the contract. The latter incurs a penalty of 7% of the contract price, approximately 6.09 million euros out of a total value of 87 million.
The control exercised by the Council is daily: all services outlined in the contract are recorded and inventoried, allowing the Town Hall to know each day what has been provided and under what conditions. This monitoring translates into a monthly balance when the contractor submits the certification.
"Here, we do not act on impressions: we act based on a daily record, service by service, with the documentation in front of us," explained the Councillor for Street Cleaning, Eloy Belmonte.
In the eight certifications processed between January and August, 286,718 euros have been deducted for unrendered services (169,133 in waste collection and 117,586 in street cleaning) and another 20,224 euros in penalties from the Quality Plan. Only July and August account for 132,929 euros, 43% of all deductions for the year, during the peak season. "If a service has not been provided, the first thing is that it is not paid; the file comes afterwards, because that breach also has a cost for the resident," Belmonte pointed out.
The 6 million euro penalty for the breach of implementation obligations was imposed last May, when its processing began and the period for allegations was opened. The company has not responded to the allegations, and the file continues its course, awaiting the corresponding municipal department to execute the sanction.
The files processed this year attribute to the contractor the repeated failure to provide scheduled services, the breach of obligations regarding the implementation of the service and the committed facilities, and the omission of the duty to report breakdowns of vehicles assigned to the service. The councillor wanted to emphasize the size of the company. "We are not dealing with a small company overwhelmed by a contract that is too big for it, but with a leading multinational in its sector, with hundreds of municipal contracts behind it," he stated. "That a company of this size accumulates breaches of this nature is very difficult to explain. If a contract of 87 million euros is assumed, it must be fulfilled by both parties."
Belmonte reminded that since the contract was awarded in 2022 until November 2023, the previous government team, formed by the PSOE with the support of Ciudadanos, did not audit a single service: 100% of the certifications were paid without any review, and not a single sanction or deduction was processed. This term, he assured, is fully documented in the cleaning area.
The councillor insisted that the function of the Council is to enforce the contract, and that daily auditing and the opening of files are the tools available to achieve this, not an end in itself. "It is not about sanctioning for the sake of sanctioning: the goal is for Mijas to be clean, and sanctioning is the only way we have to force the company to comply," he explained. Belmonte also warned that when breaches reach a certain magnitude, such as three very serious breaches, there is a possibility that the contract could be terminated.
The contract, awarded in 2022 by the previous government team, also includes an annual price review, which is automatically and mandatorily applicable to the Town Hall regardless of the degree of compliance with which the service is provided. "This is the contract that Mijas inherited and that this Council has to manage; we did not draft it and we would not have signed it under these terms, because it guarantees the company a review every year without ensuring the same level of demand for the residents," Belmonte pointed out.
"It is not in our hands to change what others signed; it is in our hands to ensure compliance: to check each service, not to pay for what is not provided, and to file for what is not fulfilled. And we will do this until the last day of the contract."
These are the available data to date, although there are files currently in processing: sanctioning processes require time and work, and are not resolved overnight. In this regard, concluded the cleaning councillor, "neither the department nor this councillor will hesitate."
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