Auch: Garros Services in danger after the loss of a contract with the Gers public housing office

“We are not at war, begins Nadine Aurensan, president of the Garros Services management this Wednesday, August 10. If we choose to publicize our situation, it is because the management is really in danger.” Created in 1989, the association is dedicated to the integration through economic activity of people in difficulty, in order to allow a return to employment, in particular through cleaning.

For thirty years, Garros Services had a public market contract with the Gers public housing office (OPH). “Our integration project was cleaning up the entire Auscitain housing stock of the HLM office, presents Isabelle Labart, director of the neighborhood management. It was a structuring contract for us”.

The criterion of insertion

The document between the two partners coming to an end, a new notice of public call for competition was launched last May by the OPH 32. A call for tenders to which the association applied. “Unlike previous contracts, in this one, the integration clause was not included in the selection of the winner, explains the director. Once the contract is signed, the selected company must work a certain number of hours for the ‘occupational integration”.

For the president, “the disappearance of this clause opened the market to applications from other cleaning companies, believes Nadine Aurensan. It was no longer reserved for professional integration associations”. And on July 19, the office learned that the contract, effective from August 1, had been awarded to a private Toulouse company. “For us, it was a blow, assures Isabelle Labart. We were not really given reasons for this decision. We thought we were historical partners.”

213,000 euros lost and 22 people affected

The market represents approximately 213,000 euros per year for the management, or more than half of its turnover. If the OPH has assigned the cleaning of the buildings to another company, it has nevertheless granted that of its head office to the management. “It represented 18,000 euros per year, specifies Nadine Aurensan. We refused it because we could not maintain the site only on that”.

Since the announcement of the decision, the office of the association has been working on the search for a new support for integration, in order to allow the 22 people on the site, including nearly 70% of women, who are facing obstacles employment, to continue their activity and to maintain social ties. “The emergency is the lack of funding, especially for the remaining five months of the year. We have leads, but they will not be able to fill the almost 100,000 euros”, worries Nadine Aurensan.

Garros Services also filed a pre-contractual summary before the administrative court of Pau to request the cancellation of the market as well as to “show our disagreement”, specifies Isabelle Labart.

Contacted, the OPH specifies that it is “for the moment, forced to wait for the decision of the administrative court”. He assures all the same: “We have launched a classic procedure for this type of market and there are winners and non-winners.”

The appeal should be examined this Thursday, August 11.