CAMPOBASSO – The Budget approved yesterday by the Regional Council according to the Five Star Movement is a soulless Budget in which the Five Star Movement would have turned two lights on public housing and waiting lists.
“The accounting situation of the Region – underline the M5S group at Palazzo D’Aimmo – prevents us from restoring hope to Molise: it is a bitter but necessary observation, after having addressed the budget session.
In the darkness of an exercise without soul and vision, however, we can be proud of having turned on two lights: the first, which aims to make the management of tenders for the assignment of public housing more transparent and efficient, so as to allow those who need a home can get answers in certain times, without anyone bypassing them. The second, on the need to break down waiting lists in our public healthcare system. With another amendment approved unanimously we expressed a simple concept. If public waiting lists are too long, it must not be possible to do paid activities in hospital. A rule which, among other things, implements what has already been established at national level.
At the same time, it is impossible not to note the general situation of the Molise system between businesses that are decreasing and municipalities that are becoming depopulated. Faced with this picture, the center-right has once again demonstrated that it does not know which direction to go. This is despite the Pnrr funds, despite the resources provided by both state and European transfers. We are talking about 446 million euros from the Development and Cohesion Fund and the 402 million linked to structural funds, in particular from the ERDF and the ESF.
In short, the money is there, but Molise doesn’t know how to spend it.
In the Regional Economy and Finance Document (Defr), the main planning document, the solutions are missing, the structural reforms that this region needs are missing. There is a lack of answers on infrastructure, tourism, social issues, but also on residential construction, urban regeneration, industrial policies or regional heritage. And, above all, there is a lack of answers to healthcare problems: nothing to reorganize the hospital system, nor to address the shortage of doctors. No response to strengthen 118, while compared to 16 stations, in Molise today only 5 have a doctor on board.
Ultimately the Defr has no impact on the present or the future of Molise, indeed once again politics asks Molise people to pay for an increasingly unsustainable machine and does so by increasing taxes and duties.
Furthermore, the delay in the discussion on the Budget and the risk of another rejection by the Court of Auditors prevent planning and also block the opposition from carrying out its task. Yet there are solutions. For example, to begin reducing debt the Region could reverse course on derivative financial products: over time Molise has accumulated over 317 million in residues linked to these bonds, and has done nothing to reduce them.
Yet, there are other similar situations in which some entities – through appeal to the judges – have opened up the possibility of cutting rates and saving tens, hundreds of millions of euros. The Molise Region would also have the duty to do so, because it is also due to these debts, in fact, that today the tax pressure is skyrocketing, among the highest in Italy.
In short, we are faced with a dramatic accounting situation, confirmed by the negative opinion of the Board of Auditors on the budget forecast, which raises many doubts about the maintenance of the validity of the deficit plan established with the Government: to put it simply, just think that if the Molise Region were a private company, it would be under bankruptcy proceedings today.
For all these reasons, we could only vote against. But one reason above all: because otherwise we would have authorized health spending for a total amount for the year 2024 equal to approximately 80 percent of the total resources taken from the regional budget to guarantee health services that today are not adequate to the minimum essential levels . We therefore continue to survive in a perennial past: this is the truth. And there is no trace, not even this time, of the much vaunted ‘Molise Decree’ heralded by parliamentarians Lorenzo Cesa and Claudio Lotito.
Often in recent days we have been told that the fault lies with “who was there before”. And it is impossible for us to forget that, for the most part, those who were there “before” are those who are still there today. This is also why Molise’s prospects are negative, but also why we continue to work every day to reverse the trend.
In the total darkness of yet another blood and tears budget, we have brought home two results, which, although they will change the scenario slightly, will allow the people of Molise to have answers on important issues such as public housing and healthcare services. A small consolation, but from the opposition benches, we honestly couldn’t do more. We too are paying for electoral choices that have effectively handed over this land into the hands of a political and ruling class that perseveres in making wrong choices. The approval of the budget, to which we said no, is only the latest in time.”
