VIDEO | Pnrr. Lepore also counts the government’s cuts: “Bologna loses 22 million euros”

The mayor joins the ranks of the protest against the cuts announced to the Municipalities. And he warns: "We are on the threshold of a national financial crisis"

BOLOGNA – The mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, joins the chorus of protest of local administrators against the decision announced by the Mef of a spending review aimed in particular at the Municipalities that have drawn more resources from Pnrr.
The mayor of Bologna thus updates the account of the cuts that would affect the city based on the Government’s spending review on the Municipalities that have received more resources from the Pnrr: 22 million euros in four years, including the one in progress. The mayor provided the figure while speaking today in the City Council on what he defines as “the important cut that the Government is implementing towards local authorities in the national territory”. For Lepore it is “important to talk about this in the Council because, if it were to be confirmed, the cut we are talking about would have a very negative effect on the municipal administration’s accounts and a clear reverberation on the general system of services and the stability of the procedures as well that the administration must carry forward.”

“HUGE FIGURE FOR A MUNICIPALITY THAT HAS DECIDED TO TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE OF THE PNRR”

Therefore, based on the draft decree that is circulating in Anci, Lepore reports, “the cut for the Municipality of Bologna would be around 4.5 million: this is the figure that was circulating until yesterday”. It is presumable, continues the mayor, that the share linked to current expenditure is equal to 1.1 million and that linked to the Pnrr is 3.3 million. To these figures should then be added the 947,000 euros of so-called IT spending, Lepore reports. “So the Municipality of Bologna would thus reach a total cut of 5.5 million”, continues the mayor: “This means between now and the next four years, including the current one, 22 million. Yesterday we had the opportunity to communicate a lower figure , i.e. 13.5 million, but in these hours we are learning further implications and calculations which must be confirmed if the Government intends to proceed with what is being written and proposed”.
Meanwhile, “22 million for a In common they are a huge figure, especially for someone like Bologna which is virtuous and has decided to take up the Pnrr challenge”, underlines Lepore.

“WE ARE AT THE DOOR OF A NATIONAL FINANCIAL CRISIS”

This damages “the credibility of national institutions, because removing funding disbursed and already included in the budgets of local authorities – underlines the mayor – undermines the loyal collaboration that is envisaged by the Constitution in the relationship between entities. You cannot finance a municipality and then take away its resources, it means that we are in a serious and emergency situation: it is therefore clear that we are on the threshold of a national financial crisis that we must worry about” “Furthermore, “an administrative and political monster is looming”, continues Lepore, referring to the link between Pnrr funds and cuts in current spending. “In the municipality’s budget, investments are on the right and current expenses on the left”, continues the mayor: in other words, “you cannot take the Pnrr and pay the staff, give contributions to the third sector or pay the electricity bills” . Without forgetting that in the meantime the costs borne by the Municipality are rising, warns Lepore, citing the nine million more for the local authorities contract and the eight million for the cooperative contract.

“THE GOVERNMENT PLAYS A GAME OF THREE CARD GAMES”

Therefore, if the Government needs resources, “it should focus more on those who are tax evaders or in theory are waiting for the next amnesty”, says Lepore. In all of this, the Government had said that part of the Pnrr funds would be replaced with other posts, but “if these were the funds of the Municipalities…”, Lepore spreads his arms: “I didn’t think I was in a tourist street with a three-card player, but rather in a Republic where if institutions commit to doing things, they are ultimately able to agree in a fair and transparent way on how to do the good of the community”. Until the government takes steps backwards, we will have to remove a significant figure from our budget between now and the end of the mandate: we are doing the calculations and we could reach figures even higher than those we published yesterday”. The concern of the government is growing. mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, for the government’s cuts, which with the spending review should hit the municipalities that have received more resources from the Pnrr the most. “We are very worried because it means a cut in current spending, therefore the resources we use for personnel, social services, educational services, the reduction of tariffs, summer centers. I really hope that the government listens to all the mayors of all political stripes and goes back on this decision”, reiterates the mayor who will also speak in the City Council today.

“ADMINISTRATIVE LEGAL MONSTER TO MAKE CASH”

“Even the criterion that is used is absurd, on the one hand we are financed with the Pnrr, but the Municipalities that are given more Pnrr, which are investments to carry out works, are cut in current spending for services to citizens”, protests Lepore. “A legal-administrative monster to raise cash, but it is only the appetizer, I fear, of what will happen after the elections towards the Stability Law“, predicts the mayor. “The Government doesn’t know where to find the resources and goes towards the only subjects with whom it is easy to raise cash. The Municipalities and the citizens of the territories. On the other hand, nothing is done about tax evasion and anything else, on the contrary, they do amnesties. An approach that does not bode well for the future”, he concludes, reporting the concerns also expressed this morning by the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, in the meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni which took place this morning in the Prefecture. /p>