Lawyers handling the case argue that the claims do not meet the requirements to be admitted, because there is no direct contract for the service between Fospuca Caroní and the municipal companies, but rather a contract made by the Mayor’s Office of Caroní.
Text: Laura Clisánchez / Caroní Mail
So far, Fospuca has sued eight companies in Ciudad Guayana with seizure requests for non-payment of the garbage collection service, owed since November 2022.
Until now, these companies are: Metalúrgica Chirica, Centro de Especialidades Médicas, Unidad Integral Dermocosmiatra IR Cosmetic, Star Motors, Triple Fashion, CA, Hotel Doral Inn, Palestina Import and Inversiones Gymetal, CA
Although the case is carried out as a private matter between commercial companies, there is no direct contracting of the service agreed between Fospuca Caroní and the companies of the municipality | Photo Laura Clisanchez
This was confirmed by the legal representation of the affected companies. Until one in the afternoon this Monday the courts had not admitted any other lawsuit.
The Assembly of Citizens for the Management of Urban Cleaning in Caroní protested on the morning of this Monday, February 27, in front of the Palace of Justice of Puerto Ordaz to reject these measures that threaten the formal sector of the municipality’s economy.
“We have mistrust in the institutions because decisions are made not based on the legal, but rather there are other weightier issues. They have been expeditious in executing seizure orders, but not in accepting the claims that we have introduced,” denounced Simón Yegres, a member of the organizing committee of the Citizens’ Assembly.
Regarding the agreements, dialogues and approaches that the business chambers have made with municipal authorities, Yegres believes that: “There is no possibility of an agreement because it is so exorbitant that no discount would be a solution.”
“We want to call on the judges to reflect because trade belongs to everyone. Companies are afraid of an embargo, that the mayor’s office will come to you and close their businesses. We are the businessmen who sustain the economic activity of the city,” said Susana Linares, businesswoman in the accommodation sector and part of the organizing committee of the Citizens’ Assembly.
*Read also: Opposition councilors of Caroní ask Fospuca to see his concession contract
Admission of demands of Fospuca without criteria
The lawsuits were introduced by Fospuca Caroní in the courts: First Court of First Instance in Civil, Commercial, Agrarian, Banking, Maritime and Aeronautical Matters, and Second Court of First Instance in Civil, Commercial, Banking and Transit Matters of the Second Circuit of the Judicial District of Bolívar State.
The company that provides the urban cleaning service requested these courts to execute a provisional seizure measure on movable property up to the amount equivalent to double the sums claimed, plus the costs of the process, and professional fees.
So far, no preventive embargo measure has been executed. Neither have calls for conciliation been made between the parties.
To sue these companies, and therefore force them to pay the debts, Fospuca Caroní relies on three documents:
- An act of beginning the contracting of the solid waste collection service signed by the mayor Tito Oviedo, and the president of Fospuca, José Simón Elarba.
- A communication issued by the mayor Tito Oviedo about the hiring of the company Serdeco, to coordinate the billing of the sanitary landfill service from Corpoelec.
- Proformas, or invoices, that Fospuca uses to charge users directly for the service, without prior contracting between the parties.
According to the lawyers handling the case, for an injunction to be admitted there must be an executive title, that is, a public, notarized document, check, promissory note or document that has been signed by the parties involved, in this This is the case, for example, between Fospuca Caroní as a company that provides the urban sanitation service, and the private company that hires the service.
These terms are established in articles 642 and 643 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
But in this case, the measure does not meet the requirements to be admitted, because there is no direct contract between Fospuca Caroní and the companies of the municipality, but it is a contract made by the Mayor’s Office of Caroní, which makes the fact in a public matter, and not private between commercial companies.
“None of the companies contracted the service directly, this is a contract made by the Mayor’s Office of Caroní whose conditions we do not know,” explained José Gregorio Meignen, lawyer.
The first complaints and seizure requests made by Fospuca Caroní against companies in Ciudad Guayana became public opinion on February 14. By then, an official figure of five companies sued for owing the urban cleaning service since November 2022 (three invoices) was handled, three of these companies settled their debt to avoid embargoes, according to the Fospuca presidency, in an interview with Correo del Caroní .
*Read also: Fospuca Caroní sues five companies and asks the courts for an embargo measure
Before international instances
José Ríos, councilor of the Caroní municipality, reported that on the afternoon of February 24, the Human Rights Commission of the Bolívar State Bar Association presented before the United Nations representation in Venezuela the case of “harassment and persecution that from administrative instances of the municipal government, as well as from the courts of the Palace of Justice, towards the business and commercial sectors in pursuit of charging for an irregularly established urban cleaning service”.
This happened in the framework of an extraordinary hearing between representatives of Latin America, according to Ríos. The information was confirmed by Javier González, lawyer and president of the Human Rights Commission of the Bar Association.
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