ROME (ITALPRESS) – “Out of respect for the flood victims, I am not going to argue. I am a minister, this is not the time for contrasts. But I never talked about responsibility. I reiterated that we will continue to have calamitous events until serious structural prevention is implemented by all regions.” Thus, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, Civil Defense Minister Nello Musumeci responded to accusations of “looting.”
“Schlein, who knows that territory well for having been a regional councillor on the subject, would do well to let people know how many and what interventions she has carried out during her mandate,” Musumeci added, stressing that expansion tanks “are a valuable prevention tool. But they should be built before the flood, that is, in ordinary management, which is the responsibility of the regions, and not extraordinary management, entrusted to Reconstruction Commissioner Figliuolo. We have asked the region what infrastructure it has built at least in the last decade, to identify additional goals and resources beyond the 596 million euros it has received since 2013. Collaboration requires confrontation and mutual respect.”
“The government,” Musumeci continued, “is present with concrete facts… Tell us Mayor Lepore how much and how he has spent on infrastructure prevention in his territory. Citizens have a right to know how they have been protected from the pitfalls of the territory. There is nothing scandalous about it. It is easy a few days before the election deadline to say as in these hours that it is the fault of the national government, more like passing the buck!”
“One thing is reconstruction,” he explains, “another is ordinary prevention, for example of the last 20 years, which is the responsibility of the regions with money from the state, which has not been lacking based on the numbers the offices report to me. “With the Meloni government alone,” he adds, “we have already allocated for Emilia-Romagna 30.5 million for interventions already programmed, more than 61 for those to be programmed and 17 million for instability in an already vulnerable region: it is among those that in the last 10 years have recorded the highest soil consumption and cementification. I understand that the vote is a short time away and every opportunity is useful to attack the Meloni government, but I claim the right of reply.” And to the question of whether it will be worse with differentiated autonomy, he replied, “It was asked for by Emilia-Romagna insistently. It is their flag, that it was then lowered in the face of our government’s determination is a problem of consistency that does not concern me. The regions, even without autonomy, already have the funds: every regional president is also a commissioner for the fight against hydrogeological instability.”
– photo Photogram Agency –
(ITALPRESS).