“In the summer of 2019, Catanzaro risked a devastating environmental disaster with the partly avoided discharge into the sea of a mountain of sludge not disposed of by the Verghello purifier. The contents of the shock information from the Guardia di Finanza are chilling. If confirmed from further evidence, we would find ourselves faced with a story made of cynicism, inefficiency, guilty superficiality which has jeopardized the health of citizens and our sea. The gravity of the facts narrated in the information requires us not to look the other way While the judiciary does its job, it is up to us to better understand the political and administrative steps that led to that dramatic situation. All this was happening while the municipality of Catanzaro, despite having numerous millions of euros available for the realization of the new purifier and the new purification scheme preferred to waste time and funding with all due respect to the clean sea and the city’s tourism development prospects”. This is what the city councilor stated in a note Vincenzo Capellupo.
“We ask that the in-depth analysis of this serious issue – continues Capellupo – be brought to the competent “Supervision and Control” council commission, reserving the right to request, pursuant to article 27 of the municipal council regulation, the establishment of an investigation commission which ensure the regularity and correctness of the actions carried out in that circumstance by the directors and managers”.
Finally, Capellupo recalled that “today the purification in Catanzaro was commissioned by the national government for the above-mentioned failures. Nonetheless, the current administration, with a sense of responsibility, has decided to invest around 2 million euros for the functioning of the the current purifier, committing its own funds coming from the devolution of mortgages and subtracting them from other priority interventions of the administration, and to carry out and plan interventions on the sewerage scheme for over a further 2 million euros. All of which demonstrates a substantial discontinuity in these 18 months compared to the twenty-year Abraham government”.