Mayor Valerie Blunt’s administration says it is furious and vows to act quickly after a debit report on recycling giant Rekova was revealed.
• Read also: Montreal was cheated by its recycling company, according to the inspector general
In a report published Monday, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) revealed that Ricova did not share all revenue from the sale of recyclables with the City of Montreal, passing it through one of its affiliates: Ricova International inc.
According to Inspector Brigitte Bishop, the city was deprived of at least $1 million between August 2020 and July 2021. Recova has not stopped operating the only two sorting centers in Montreal since then.
MAnd the Therefore, Bishop recommends terminating the contracts of the Saint-Michel and Lachine centers and banning four companies linked to Recova and its director, Dominique Colubiale.
“The conclusions of the BIG report on Ricova are disgusting,” replied the person in charge of the environmental file in the Plant Department, Marie-Andre Mauger.
No interruption in service
She emphasized that the recommendations would be implemented quickly, “while ensuring that collection, sorting and processing services are maintained.”
One thing is not so simple, because if Montreal removes the company’s president, Dominic Colubriale, at the request of the inspector general, it will also result in the termination of waste collection contracts in five boroughs.
Mme Moger recalls that Rekova was “imposed” on the city when it bought assets, including contracts, for a bankruptcy company, Canadian Solid Rejects (RSC), in 2020.
In fact, as our FBI revealed in 2020, Plant’s management wasn’t thrilled with the idea of working with Rekova, whose business model consists of selling recyclables at the other end of the world, particularly in India.
Moreover, Rekova already had a bad reputation and lawsuits had accumulated with municipalities, including Montreal.
Despite this reputation, the Quebec government, which would have opposed Rekova’s takeover of RSC’s assets, did not see fit to intervene at the time.