PANAMA’S long standing  losing battle with garbage collection has taken another turn as City Mayor Jose Isabel Blandon, plans to return the collection role to the city.

Control was removed by then president Ricardo Martinelli during the short lived reign of Mayor Bosco Vallarino , with promises that under the Martinelli Administration the newly formed Urban and Household Authority Household (AAUD) would solve the problems.
With Martinelli gone the unsolved city garbage problems remain.
Mayor Blandon who had made numerous moves to improve the city’s image from removing illegal advertising boards to clamping down on restaurant and disco noise polluters, wants control of garbage collection back in city hands.
Bur a group of AAUD employees have expressed their opposition to the transfer + info
Clementina Ward, Secretary General of the Association of AAUD Workers has asked President Juan Carlos Varela for a vote of confidence and says they hope he will let them keep doing the job.
Hugo Romero, secretary of the institution, asks that workers be provided with the resources and equipment they need.
"We do not want the municipality, we do not want the municipality" workers chanted at a Friday press conference.
Meanwhile the mayor says the transfer of waste collection services to the city has been postponed until 2016 to allow the institution to be strengthened in personnel and equipment before it becomes a city responsibility.