San Miguelito was on the brink of a garbage crisis, and the government decided to act quickly. With this decision, AAUD becomes the strong hand that keeps San Miguelito clean until a definitive solution can be implemented. The measure also responds to the fact that the municipal authority lacks the logistics and transportation to collect garbage with the urgency that the situation demands. In turn, Minister of Health Fernando Boyd Galindo highlighted that the government allocated about 700 thousand dollars to prevent garbage from causing health problems for the population. The Council of Ministers authorized AAUD to take full control of waste collection in the district and prevent more than 200,000 residents from being affected by the accumulation of garbage. “Everything indicates that the situation could have worsened if we had not acted immediately,” said Moreno. Boyd Galindo reaffirmed that the priority is to protect the health of the neighbors, keeping the district clean and avoiding any risk of an epidemic. “Starting next Monday, when the current company's contract (Revisalud) expires, there is no structure capable of solving this, so we authorized AAUD to take the matter into hand while a public tender is prepared,” he explained. The administrator of AAUD, Ovil Moreno, explained that the intervention is temporary but necessary because the contracted companies were not ready to take on the service after January 19, the date they were supposed to start.
Panama Government Intervenes in San Miguelito's Garbage Crisis
The Panama government allocated $700,000 and handed over waste management in San Miguelito to the AAUD due to the municipality's inability to handle the crisis. The measure is temporary but necessary to protect the health of 200,000 residents.
