Protan Runs Out Of Operating Capital

The quantity of organic waste collected by Protan, the concessionaire of pounding services, at national level can be as much as 250 - 300 tons per day, with peaks in November and December, according to Costin Miu, Managing Partner with Stentor Creative Relations, the PR firm representing Protan. He explained that Protan had written 11 reports to the Ministry of Agriculture informing them that the company was going to default unless the Ministry paid the approximately 4 million EUR owed since 2006. The money is due for processing waste collected from the local councils and city halls with whom Protan has a contract. According to Agerpres, Protan has contracts to collect and process organic waste with 8,760 companies and 2,505 local councils and city halls. The services provided to local authorities are not paid by the authorities, but by the state, according to a concession contract signed in 2002. Among the meat producers which have signed a contract with Protan are Agricola International - Bacau and Avicola - Crevedia. On Monday morning, Protan representatives announced that they would halt service provision countrywide in order to protest the State"s failure to pay invoices on time. Protan clarified that they were not terminating the contract, but suspending it because of lack of money to carry it on. Cristina Miu, CEO of Protan, said that 20 million EUR had been invested in technological compliance with EU standards, but the State was not paying all the debts resulting from the concession. The Agricultural Payment and Intervention Agency (APIA) announced late last week that they had authorized all payments due to Protan, which were compliant with legal eligibility provisions. APIA added that they had paid some 28 million RON for 2006 - 2008 and had authorized another 7.3 million RON. A payment of 2.6 million RON had not been authorized because it was not eligible. Among the irregularities that APIA found in Protan"s documentation was double invoicing, currency exchange miscalculation, invoices submitted for wrong counties and traceability problems According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Protan was scheduled to receive another 1 million EUR in November and the payment is currently being processed.