“Did thirsty Favara give her water to Agrigento?” This is the title of the offending article which led to a reply from Aica which we would like to define as disorganized and unjustifiably victimised.
We say that there was a two-day lack of supply to the city of Favara, a fact confirmed by Aica in its reply, then we ask ourselves a question on the basis of some unofficial information and we ask, we elegantly believe, Aica to prove us wrong, considering that communication between the company and journalists is not easy in short ways. We will return to the inadequate official communication between Aica and the press shortly.
If we ask ourselves the question in the article it is due to the lack of official information which, we repeat, we try to the point of asking for a denial ourselves. The question, in our opinion, cannot be the spread of unfounded news.
But what makes us jump out of our seats is Aica’s invitation “to the media to proceed with extreme caution in the dissemination of unverified news, which could mislead public opinion, fueling feelings of exasperation and mistrust”.
The press reports the facts objectively: the water supplied to citizens is insufficient and the service is inadequate. Aica itself in its press releases is always objective, limiting itself to citing failures and service interruptions, never a press conference, never official statements on the state of the art and its immediate future with real and well-founded technical and non-political evaluations .
A serious fact is Aica’s victimization when it reminds us “that, in the past, AICA employees have been victims of threats and attacks, episodes that must absolutely not be underestimated.” Now if there is one thing that the press has never underestimated, it is the hard work of those on the front line of the integrated water service. Indeed, SiciliaOnPress in particular has never held back in publicly recognizing the merits of the workers, underlining that it is thanks to them and their professionalism that water still reaches the citizens. The press respects him regardless of Aica’s victimhood.
A necessary bulletin
Let’s now return to Aica’s communication. The company should inform the public, in detail, about how many liters of water per second arrive each day and individually in the cities managed by the public company.
Let’s help ourselves with an example on Favara. Citizens know that the supply to their city should be 70 to 80 liters per second and that the service can still hold up to 50 l/s thanks to the great professionalism of the technicians responsible for distribution within the country. Below 50 l/s the service is collapsing with water shifts that well exceed eight days of waiting for a few hours of supply.
A daily supply bulletin to the Municipalities would help users to know the water emergency situation in their own city and in others in the province. After all, users already check their storage tanks every day to find out if they can treat themselves to a shower.
The constantly updated situation would be an additional tool for the Region which could better understand the emergency in every single city managed by Aica.
Region or no Region, it would be useful to citizens.
To close, on our part there is no ongoing hostility with Aica, we try to do our job as best as possible and we would be in the best conditions with a direct channel with the company, rather than resorting to asking questions and soliciting replies as on this occasion .
Adequate communication between Aica and journalists, not just made up of press releases, would be a great advantage for everyone and would have no contraindications.
On “unfairly damaging the reputation of AICA and those who work there”, we take the liberty of replying in turn and stating that the reputation of a company that manages a service is entrusted to the very quality of the provision of the service itself and not to other or to others.
