Pests of rats and cockroaches: Lisbon was two months without a contract for prevention actions on the streets
The municipality admits that there was no summer contract with a company to combat urban pests, but guarantees that the preventive measures were carried out in the same action. Between June 1 and August 19, requests for help in the 180 cheapest parishes Campo Ourique and Olivais among the worst areas
Despite reports about the greater circulation of rats, cockroaches and perceived through the streets of Lisbon, the municipality of the capital spent two months, between and August, each time without a contract in place for prevention actions for these pests. In other words, the contract with the company that for three years had the mission to stop pests in the capital ended in early June and only now, in August, a new contract came into force. This at a time when a group of citizens has already announced that they are in a cleaning operation at some times, to protect themselves that the city never gets dirty, at the same time that they will organize the time that they warn for rats to study “pests at dirty height” and never-before-seen cockroaches.”
To CNN Portugal, the office of CML councilor Ângelo Pereira, who has this department, admits that in those months there was no company to award the contract with the non-pest prevention work. It ensures that the preventive actions that were planned were carried out by the “Integrated Pest Control Service (SCIP), under the Urban Cleaning Division”, with CML also contracting an external service to support and carry out prevention operations.
The neighborhoods with the most rats and cockroaches
In agreement, that municipal service “delivered direct to 136 European responses since 9 months of CML response” – the company that carried out this work in the last 36 months. According to the municipality, there was no interruption of work.
As more than 1800 requests, we request the CML, we respond to requests from municipalities to combat infestations of preventive measures and actions that are also taken.
In more than two months, that is, between June 1 and August 19, 1192 interventions were requested because of cockroaches, 356 due to rats and 277 due to insects. That is, per day there were more than 22 requests for help from these urban pests.
The areas with the most requests for the three types of pest were: Marvila, Lumiar, Belém, Campo de Ourique and Olivais. The latter was, in fact, the parish with the most problems with rats and mice, followed by Alvalade and Areeiro.
The data also reveal that the parish of Parque das Nações was the one that registered the fewest requests for problems with rats (3) and Santo António made the fewest requests for cockroaches (15).
To try the urban pests, the CML has external services and services for not having specialized technicians controlled for this purpose. The new contract that came into force provides for the payment of 552 thousand euros (449 thousand of base value plus VAT) to LUTHISA – Luthisana de Treatments de Higiene, Lda, “which will ensure preventive interventions in the city of Lisbon during the next 3 years ”.
“The tender was only launched in March 2022, which is very close to the end of the previous tender, which was not able to avoid the discontinuity of the service”, says, in turn, to CNN Portugal or PS councilor Pedro Anastácio, referring to the end of the previous contract, during the president of the CML of Fernando Medina, who has been in since 2019 until this force.
According to documents that CNN Portugal, PSD councilor Ângelo Pereira, who in the municipal executive has access to this department, authorized the contracting of the new public service on March 14, with the public tender launched on the digital public procurement platform on 24 of the same month. The award proposal was made on June 8.