On Friday 31 July, the Undersecretary of State at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers Alfredo Mantovano will travel to San Ferdinando to follow the removal activities of the tent city which has hosted, since 2008, migrants employed in agricultural activities in the Gioia Tauro plain. This was reported in a note from Palazzo Chigi, explaining that «the closure and overcoming of the camp are part of the redevelopment activities envisaged by the infrastructural intervention plan and the social and environmental redevelopment projects desired by the Government».
«Over the years – we read in the press release – the San Ferdinando tent city, in addition to forcing hundreds of people into unseemly living conditions, has represented a significant public order and sanitation problem. The action carried out by the commissioner’s structure dedicated to the redevelopment of highly vulnerable areas will make it possible to offer, at an adequate rent, real homes to regular migrants who until now had found shelter in the tent city, guaranteeing better living conditions for workers, greater integration and more security for the citizens of the area”.
The undersecretary, «accompanied by the Government Commissioner, Prefect Fabio Ciciliano, will be, around 10 am, at the San Ferdinando tent city and will subsequently go to the Serricella district to visit the accommodation. In the early afternoon, Mantovano will move to Naples where, at the Prefecture, he will chair, at 2.30 pm, a new meeting of the control room dedicated to updating the activities carried out in the ‘Land of Fires'”.
Gaetano in Council: transfer completed
«Yesterday, Tuesday, we can say that the transfer of the guests from the San Ferdinando tent city was completed». Mayor Gianluca Gaetano said this while speaking in the City Council convened, among other things, to approve the Regulation governing the use of accommodation in Rosarno, the current destination of the bulk of migrants, i.e. those who have not been assigned to the CAS of the province or included in the Sai projects.
«The document which provides for the rights and duties of the guests – continued the mayor in the debate which preceded the favorable vote of the assembly – allows our body to regulate the use of a complex of 5 buildings which up to now have been unused and built by the Region with restricted funds, the ownership of which the Municipality of Rosarno has temporarily ceded to our body as part of that great institutional engineering work which, thanks to the coordination of the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria, has been able to guarantee operation, efficiency and sobriety. Now the regulation will have to be implemented by the Municipality of Rosarno.”
Speaking of the new housing logistics made available to migrants, the mayor reported that «they are housed in 4 of the 5 buildings available because we have also planned, within the complex, a wing entirely dedicated to social, welfare and medical services, transferring the headquarters of the nascent integrated social center made up of the 3 Municipalities there, made possible by the agreed remodulation of the Su.pre.me 2 project which, as we know, uses European funds. Regular migrants who have an employment contract, or in any case those who have the right to a regular residence, will have access to it, upon payment of a regulated monthly fee.”