The company Grin has announced the closure of its rental service of scooters electric scooters in Peru due to an “illegal and whimsical interpretation” of the Municipality of Miraflores.
Through a statement on its social networks, the company “regrets the dismissal of its workers”, in addition to thanking the support of “more than 40 thousand users”.
Grin’s reasons for leaving Peru
According to the company, the service is being shut down as a direct result of “the arbitrary decisions and actions of the Municipality of Miraflores“.
“We condemn the reiterated conduct of the current management of the. Municipality of Miraflores which violates the freedom of enterprise and sustainable urban mobility through i) the illegal and whimsical interpretation of its own current municipal regulations, ii) the abuse of its institutional power and of its oversight and control function; and, iii) the irregular and petty conduct of its highest officials who only serve demagogic and personal political interests without any technical or legal basis”, the company denounces.
In its communiqué, it also rejects the statements made by the mayor of. MirafloresCarlos Canales Anchorena, who refers that the ordinances for its operation in the district “were issued under its own name”.
In addition, he denounces “extortive attitudes” of John Ampuero Joyo, manager of the municipality. “Mr. Ampuero Joyo even insisted and threatened that the only way Grin could resume operations is through ‘donations,'” he adds.
Complaints
Vasco Mujica, General Manager of Grinpointed out RPP News that the company went through a severe economic crisis in the midst of the pandemic.
“In the pandemic, we were never considered part of any of the stages of economic reactivation despite being a means of transportation,” he refers. “Even despite being perfect against COVID-19, we were never given authorization to operate.”
At the time of trying to go back to the market, “it maintained a good public-private relationship” with the Municipality of Miraflores. “If they needed a scooter as a concert or activity, we lent them. There was a common goal: the promotion of micromobility as a sustainable and emission-reducing means of transportation.”
“The law does not require an agreement. We met the requirements, registered the scooters and had the insurance policies,” he says. “And there came a time when we were told ‘you don’t have authorization. But there was no change in regulations’.”
To this, he adds that he received notifications for “carrying out commercial and repair activities in general on public roads without municipal authorization.” He denies having carried out these actions due to the fact that they do not have any related activity in this regard. This triggered the seizure of scooters by the municipality.
“We have had 25 meetings with officials. Most of them have agreed with us, with the exception of Fiscalización y Control y Gerencia,” he says.
Vasco says that all the workers of Grin FreeFlow have been fired and he himself has made his position as general manager available. “We did everything to make things right.”
Finally, he refers that Grin4Ua service where you rented a scooter for a monthly fee, will continue to operate despite the closure of operations, although it only accounted for “25% of the company’s revenues”.
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