LIVORNO. The economic pulse of the port of Livorno beats regularly. It loses some success as a result of the economic crisis, but the organization has a financial solidity that makes you sleep soundly and also allows you to plan the future from an organic perspective. Above all, we talked about this with the lawyer Matteo Parolifor twenty-seven years in the control room of Palazzo Rosciano and for a dozen with the delicate role of general secretary of the institution.
On a strictly economic level, how is 2024 going? 2023 was the first real year out of Covid and it showed. What are the indicators for this first half of the year?
«The data we can provide is not indicative, because it is not linear over the course of the year and therefore could be proven wrong within a few months. At the moment, however, there would be a slight decline in revenue from the point of view of port taxes, due to a decrease in commercial traffic. However, I repeat, the trend decline could be proven wrong in the coming months. In mid-June we are at over 5 million euros in assessed taxes. In 2023 we closed with approximately 14 million euros. Even if there is a boom in cruises, the taxation part is mainly influenced by commercial traffic, while cruise traffic has a marginal impact. Passengers have other benefits for the port and for the economy of the Region.”
Is the decline in commercial traffic a direct consequence of the Suez crisis?
«Yes, a lot of it is about that. All the international experts say so. The Suez crisis is benefiting Spanish and North African ports. At the moment the trend is this. One thing is certain: however, the seaports overlooking the Adriatic have lost the most.”
Assuming a slight decrease in revenue, could problems arise or is the Port Authority of Livorno solid from a financial point of view?
«The Port Authority is financially solid and if it were not, the relevant measures would have already been taken. The law does not allow a budget liability for the port system authorities and in this case a capital measure, or a commissionership, is taken. Our balance sheet is healthy, we closed 2022 with an increase in current income of 6.9%, going from 44 million and 900 thousand euros to 48 million and 100 thousand euros. The budget trend is therefore very solid and the primary surplus is over 14 million euros. So there are no difficulties of any kind.”
Some port authorities find themselves dealing with difficult situations in terms of personnel management. What is the situation in Livorno? Are you thinking of hiring or could the specter of layoffs be looming, as happened in Civitavecchia?
«Civitavecchia is an atypical case at a national level and derives from years and years of problems that we have not recorded in Livorno and fortunately we are not recording. We have no redundancies and therefore do not expect layoffs. We do not need to reduce staff, but, on the contrary, we need to increase the current staff by 11/12 units. The organic plan was approved in 2020/2021 and was expected to be established in the two-year period 2022/2023. In 2020/2021 we had a staff of 172 people including managers, executives and the general secretary. The legislation on public employment requires us to make an integrated plan of activities and organization which is valid for two years and also serves to record personnel needs: redundancies, absences, shortcomings for retired workers”.
«Before preparing the document for the year 2023, I considered it essential to carry out a check on the workloads of all the offices of the institution to understand whether or not the approved organic plan was responsive to the needs of the administration also with reference to the works that they would start in subsequent years. The verification was carried out by an external company, made up of professionals who know how to identify workloads in the public administration and concluded in September 2023. And it gave a confirmatory trend compared to the approved organic plan, with modest changes not in the overall of employees, but differences within individual departments. The total therefore does not change and includes 172 employees, the distribution within the individual management structures will probably change. Today we do not have 172 employees in service, but 149 and there is therefore the possibility of proceeding with some hirings in the sectors that are in need. Some competitions will be launched in the coming weeks and months, while others will follow in 2025.”
