The public lighting of the city of Modena is moving towards a new service contract. In fact, the procedure to call the public tender through which the management of the service will be entrusted has been started after the administrative judges annulled the resolutions of the City Council which, by assigning the energy qualification projects to Hera luce srl, considered the contract in continuity with the original assignment attributed to Meta spa in 1997 for thirty years, therefore until 31 December 2027.
A report on the status of the procedure for the assignment of management, currently provisionally assigned to Hera Luce, considered the only entity capable of guaranteeing the continuity of the service also as owner of a large part of the plants, will be presented within the month of October as required by the order issued by the TAR on March 28th which did not reveal any inertia on the part of the municipal administration in complying with the previous sentences. The publication of the tender documents is expected between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.
The information on the actions implemented by the municipal administration to comply with the sentences of the TAR and on the state of progress of the procedure for the public tender was provided by the Environment Councilor Alessandra Filippi who, in the session of the Municipal Council on Monday 15 April, responded to the question on the future of city electricity services proposed by the Lega Modena group. In response to the question on the approximate estimate of the impact that the purchase of the lighting systems will have on the institution’s budget, it was specified that the estimate is the subject of a task entrusted to the company Nomisma which will provide the results by the month of June.
After transforming the question into an interpellation, the Democratic Party underlined that it had managed not to jeopardize the continuity of the provision of the public service to citizens, while at the same time safeguarding, with the new tender in preparation, the principle of competition. The independent Group for Modena underlined the mistake made by the administration, in potential conflict of interest, at the basis of an affair that started badly and was managed worse in which the principle of legality was not safeguarded. Fratelli d’Italia, highlighting the seriousness of the sentences, stated that the fact that the systems are owned by third parties does not justify the failure to comply with the rules on competition and the violation of citizens’ right to have the best possible service. In response, Lega Modena highlighted the errors of the administration which wanted to support Hera and the futility of spending money to appeal against the TAR sentences which immediately appeared unassailable.
