It would be an agreement between the companies not to participate in the tenders called by Education of the Basque Government for the 2023-2024 academic year.
The Basque Competition Authority (AVC) has initiated sanctioning proceedings against 76 school transport companies (25 from Araba, 45 from Bizkaia and 6 from Gipuzkoa) upon understanding that “there are indications” that they could have agreed not to submit to the tenders called by the Basque Government to provide services to public school students.
The conflict between companies in the school transport sector and the Basque Government became evident this Thursday, the first day of the school year, when around thirty companies that last year covered those routes to take students to their schools. they did not comply with the order given by the regional Executive.
The consequence was that yesterday some 7,400 schoolchildren, especially from rural areas, they didn’t have a bus to move, according to the Minister of Education, Jokin Bildarratz.
Bildarratz, in view of this situation, considered that the actions of the carriers, especially in Bizkaia and Álava, denoted “suspicious” and probably “illicit” practices among some of these companies for not participating in the tenders for those lines and announced that it would send this information to the Basque Competition Authority and to the Prosecutor’s Office in the event of “indications of crime” of this procedure.
Now, upon initially analyzing this information, the Basque Competition Authority has opened a sanctioning file “for a possible agreement between school transport companies not to participate in the tenders called by the Department of Education of the Basque Government for the 2023 school year -2024”.
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As detailed, the initiation of this file does not prejudge the final result of the investigation and “the rational indications that motivate the initiation and the qualification that is specified are provisional in nature.” In this way, a maximum period of 24 months for instruction and resolution.
Facing the next Mondaythe Basque Government has committed to ensuring that students in public centers who need it have school transportation, despite the fact that the associations of operators that deal with this service maintain their battle with the Department of Education not to resume it until their demands are negotiated.
Source: Eitb
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