Cost of incineration unclear following negative report

Palma.—The Council of Majorca has not approved the charge for waste incineration for 2014 on account of a report from its own auditor which has warned that some measures proposed by the operator, Tirme, to lower the tariff to 131.44 euros cannot be approved without further modification of the contract between the Council and Tirme.
The company has, as an example, proposed that some fixed costs should be treated as variable costs, but the report believes that this amounts to an “extraordinary” change; hence the need to modify the contract.  There is a specific problem in respect of charges for the treatment of sewage sludge, the auditor pointing out that until now there has not been a charge for its disposal, yet Tirme would appear to want to now start charging for this disposal and it could be done retrospectively and without discounts and so correspond to over 30 million euros.