The president of the Calabria Region, Occhiuto talks about his hypothetical re-nomination at the event in Vibo to support Roberto Cosentino as mayor. And he also talks about healthcare, waste, fires: “Calabria is now a positive model”
VIBO VALENTIA – “Until about two weeks ago, in truth, I told myself that after two and a half years perhaps I wouldn’t stand for re-election. And instead, traveling the length and breadth of Calabria, I must say that the desire to do it comes to me a little more”. It therefore opens up the possibility of attempting an encore with a re-nomination for the presidency of the Calabria Region Roberto Occhiuto. And he does it from Vibo, at the event in support of the centre-right mayoral candidate, Roberto Cosentino.
HEALTH
The President of the Region therefore seems ready to throw himself back into the fray despite the fact that there are still two and a half years left before the electoral deadline, but while highlighting that the work carried out to date by his administration “has never been seen in the previous 30 years”, he admits that in some sectors there is still a lot to do, such as in healthcare: “I know well that I govern a region that has a thousand problems but also just as many possibilities for development – he began – and on healthcare we must be honest as what we have managed to achieve doing is very little compared to what is still needed, but let’s not forget where we started from. To make a comparison, if the healthcare system were a patient I would say that when I took office it was in a coma due to 12 years of administration, without investments, without hiring staff.
In the last two and a half years, 2000 operators have retired and if we had not hired and stabilized more than 3000 people, the Calabrian hospitals would have been closed today”. Speaking about the new hospitals and focusing attention on the one in Vibo, the governor highlighted that “previously we witnessed the laying of the first stone 15 times while today the new facility is taking shape. It took the commitment of all the institutions, the Prefecture, the Prosecutor’s Office to unblock the structure but there was also a great assumption of responsibility by the undersigned as health commissioner because the resources allocated at the time for the construction of the three hospitals today were completely insufficient.”
EYED TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE CALABRIA REGION WITH NO HAT IN HAND
He certainly did not define himself as a “president who goes to the ministers with his hat in his hand” but rather he claimed his belligerent action against the centre-right government: “Yet I am still the national deputy secretary of Forza Italia and I am grateful to the coalition that he chose but I am above all the president of the Calabria Region and of the Calabrians”, he added, recalling that for example they wanted to “eliminate the resources from article 20 and there I showed my opposition; when we developed the new air routes I issued a law to allow Calabrians to use Uber, which will be active from June 25th. A law challenged by Minister Salvini which I opposed before the Constitutional Court and won.”
CUBAN DOCTORS
Calabria which in the last two and a half years “has been talked about like never before” as well as for healthcare: “I had to decide whether to close all the hospitals in Reggio or keep them open by doing something very bold, for which I was criticized by all: that of the Cuban doctors. To those who asked me I said that it was an unpopular but right choice and if it is so it will become popular. Today, if you ask the people of Reggio if they are happy with Cuban doctors, they will tell you yes. Doctors – Occhiuto further noted – who have saved so many lives that are worth infinitely more than the controversy over their use”. A decision that saw Calabria “act as a trailblazer with the other regions given that their presidents called me to find out what to do”.
WASTE AND MORE
And the same goes for the governor for waste: “We all remember that we were invaded by it and that we sent it to Norway or Denmark paying 340 euros per ton. Today we have landfills authorized for disposal in our territory and the situation has clearly improved except in those places, very few in truth, where the mayors do not know how to separate waste. We approved the Arrical reform, also highly opposed, which the European Commission instead certified as “good administrative practice” and Arera said the same. We then reduced the reclamation consortia from 11 to 1 even though there is still work to be done in terms of providing services but we have closed many clientelistic taps. But has it ever happened in the previous 30 years that a reform in Calabria was reported as positive?”.
STATE LAND CONCESSIONS AND FIRE
On the first point Occhiuto was clear: “We have not blocked Bolkestein but have done what can be done according to the community directive. The quality of the free beach is not poor and I worry about the million tourists who will arrive in the summer with the new airline routes and will not find equipped places. Our reform aims to tell the other Regions that do not have even 10 meters of free beach such as Liguria, Tuscany, Emilia and Veneto that if they want to use our beaches, in order to continue doing what Europe tells them not to do, we don’t fit in.”
On the second he recalled that here too “we led the way with the use of drones, which allowed us to identify 200 arsonists and fine them 300 thousand euros, reducing the phenomenon, so much so that the head of the national civil protection asked us information on how the device worked, suggesting its use to other Regions. And the European Minister of Civil Protection did the same.”
THE IMPORTANCE OF EUROPEAN PEOPLE
Changing your approach and mentality. This is useful for Occhiuto because “in the past we sent the worst to Europe, politicians at the end of their careers. The Germans and the Luxembourgers, for example, sent their best exponents who ended up choosing the directors of the commissions who in turn made the directives. Just think that in fishing the directives that apply throughout Europe are drawn up by a Norwegian. Two fish are caught there: cod and salmon, in the Mediterranean regions there is a variety of 500 fish. We have always had a stupid, arrogant attitude towards Europe but this time we decided to send to Strasbourg one of the best people we had in the regional council: Giuseppina Princi”.
OCCHIUTO HIGHLIGHTS A RE-APPLICATION FOR THE CALABRIA REGION AND LIKES BLASTS AT THE DETRACTORS
“They have no arguments and they only ardently hope for the electoral failure of the President of the Region’s party – concluded Occhiuto – So let’s not give these people a stupid argument to be able to form an opposition which I would instead like to have with ideas to contrast with mine, also to possibly build an alternative”.
