City council wants to approve new rules for waste sorting tender in Mykolaiv by the end of the year

The Department of Housing and Communal Services has prepared a new version of the terms of the tender, which will be used by the city to select a company for waste sorting. If the Antimonopoly Committee approves the document, it is planned to submit it to the city council in December.

This was announced during a briefing on 6 November by Ihor Nabatov, First Deputy Director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services, according to NikVesti.

As you know, the first tender for waste sorting in Mykolaiv was held in the summer, but the deputies did not support the approval of its results. Two draft decisions were submitted to the session — the main one, which proposed to approve the results of the competition, and an alternative one, which rejected them. It was the alternative version that received support.

After that, by order of the mayor, a working group was set up to prepare a new version of the competition procedure. It consisted of five council members: Tetiana Dombrovska, Svitlana Babarika, Artem Khachaturov, Maksym Kovalenko and Oleksandr Bereza. They reviewed the criteria, clarified the requirements for participants and prepared updated rules for selecting the company that will sort the waste.

According to Ihor Nabatov, the new scoring system provides for a maximum of 100 points instead of 75, and the minimum threshold for the tender to be considered valid has been raised from 40 to 55 points. The number of criteria has been increased and their content detailed. As a result, he explained, the city will be able to avoid the contradictions that arose during the previous selection attempt.

«The working group has already completed its part of the work, and today we have an updated draft decision with all the developments. A total of nine people worked on the changes. The most important thing is that we have increased the number of evaluation criteria, as suggested by council members. We are planning to appeal to the Antimonopoly Committee next week, as it may affect economic competition. The review procedure takes up to 30 days. If everything goes well, we will receive a conclusion at the end of this period. I really want us to go to the December session of the city council to approve this issue finally,» said Ihor Nabatov, First Deputy Director of the Housing and Communal Services Department.

Now the meetings of the tender committee will be public, and representatives of NGOs, council members and other stakeholders will be able to join them.

«We do not limit the number of members of the tender committee — anyone can join: NGOs, deputies, and all interested parties. The main composition will remain the same as it was envisaged: a representative of the tender organiser, a representative of the waste carrier company, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection and a representative of the regional executive authority responsible for the housing and utilities sector,» said Ihor Nabatov.

The working group also worked out the term of the future contract. The previous procedure did not limit the maximum term, which was one of the reasons for discussions during the previous tender. Now the city proposes to set a clear upper limit of no more than 25 years. At the same time, the option of immediately fixing the term at 15 years with the possibility of extending it for another 10 years if the investor meets the conditions is being considered.

The financial component remains unchanged: the minimum share of income to be paid by the company to the city remains at 10%. A higher percentage will mean more points during the evaluation.

Sorting line in Mykolaiv: how the competition was held

The issue of waste sorting in Mykolaiv was raised back in 2019, when the need for two lines was estimated at around 10 million hryvnias. At the time, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych insisted that the costs should be borne by investors, not the city budget. Although a waste management programme was adopted, it was never implemented.

The Supreme Court ruled that the city council's inaction was unlawful and ordered the construction of a sorting line, as the landfill, which had been operating since 1972, had exhausted its resources.

In 2024, the deputies approved the procedure for the operation of the solid waste sorting facility and announced an investment tender. The first failed, and the second was won by «Waste To Energy Niko». However, the company received only the minimum required score, and the deputies and the head of the RMA Vitalii Kim criticised the closed procedure and unfavourable conditions.

Law enforcement officers opened proceedings and searched the city council. At the session on 28 August, the deputies did not support the approval of the contract with the winner. The city authorities are preparing new tender conditions. Sienkiewicz said the process would be public, involving international partners, including Denmark.

See also the article NikVesti: «How Mykolaiv wants to start sorting waste».