«No investment in the port of Vibo Marina within the Development and Cohesion Fund. This can be seen from Council Resolution no. 83 of 4 March. However, the same act provides for funding for other ports in Calabria. In particular, 1 million and 200 thousand euros for that of Cetraro, 5 million and 920 thousand euros for that of Diamante, 20 million for the port of Paola, 6 million and 300 thousand euros for the port of Catanzaro Lido. Zero euros for the port of Vibo Marina».
This is what the regional councilor reports in a press release Antonio Lo Schiavo, president of the Mixed Group – Freely Progressives, in relation to the exclusion of the port of Vibo Valentia Marina from the funding of the Agreement for the development and cohesion of the Calabria Region, signed on 16 February 2024.
«The overall FSC allocation made in favor of the Calabria Region is equal to almost three billion euros, to be precise 2,863,063,355.70 euros; approximately 33 million are destined for ports. I remember that last January 23rd, during the hearing in the Budget Commission of the general manager of the Unitary Planning Department, Maurizio Nicolai, I asked for an account of the resources allocated to port management and logistics, with particular reference to the port of Vibo Marina. Well, the manager (as can be seen from the reports of the session) excluded interventions on the ports, referring to critical issues regarding the timing of the construction of works at sea, which sometimes take decades. Times, he asserted, incompatible with programming tools. On the contrary, in the annexes of the resolution you can find the interventions already mentioned, supported by a significant financial allocation. Nothing, as mentioned, for the port of Vibo Marina, once again penalized by choices that definitely look elsewhere. It is worth remembering that the Municipality of Vibo Valentia, in August 2020, presented a project sheet for the amount of 21 million and 174 thousand euros as part of the institutional development contracts, concerning the redevelopment of the Malta General Pier and the Quay Cortese of the port of Vibo Marina. The source of financing for the CIS is precisely the Development and Cohesion Fund, which today deliberately ignores the Vibo port and instead contemplates others, mainly, with the exception of one, in the province of Cosenza. The port of Vibo Valentia Marina has already definitively lost funds amounting to 17 million euros intended for the extension of the outer pier. Faced with this bleak picture, the Region would have the duty to compensate the territory for these increasingly frequent “oversights”. And it could do so through an amendment to the next budget adjustment. Amendment that I have already prepared some time ago – notes Lo Schiavo -. It would be an act of justice and seriousness on the part of the regional council which would restore, at least in part, an infrastructure and an entire territory which have been waiting in vain for time immemorial to be relaunched.”