The Democratic Party attacks the center-right council for the failure to use funds to support neighborhood commerce. This is the press release from the PD and the words of the city councilor Mariarita Morabito and the city secretary of the PD Andrea Catania.
«The funds to support neighborhood trade deriving from the Bettola PII are not spent: this is what was put in black and white in the response at the end of May to a question presented by councilor Mariarita Morabito, confirming what had already emerged in a previous question from October 2023 ».
Morabito accuses: «Usually mayors complain that they don’t have resources, while here we are faced with the absurdity that, despite the availability, the funds are not spent. Lack of ideas on the part of the council? Lack of planning? Too much bureaucracy? The inability to spend the available funds demonstrates in any case the administrative incapacity of the council»
The PD statement continues: «The funds for socio-economic compensation are charges that the PII operator Bettola paid to the Municipality of Cinisello way back in 2018 to promote a balanced economic and social development of commercial activities within the municipal and supra-municipal area».
«The resources available to the Municipality amount to 1,255,972 euros, of which 460,000 euros at the disposal of the commercial district, 50,000 euros intended for the support of existing sales points and the creation of new ones and 745,972 euros for the attractiveness of the area vast.”
«The latter are funds that can still benefit city commerce, but must be committed on the basis of planning that involves neighboring municipalities, an action on which the commerce councilor has essentially remained firm».
«To date, just 146,616 euros have been spent (just under 12% of the total): 10,000 euros in consultancy activities, 24,899.60 euros for the purchase of gel columns for the city’s shops, funds which perhaps could have been used best, while 77,927 euros were reserved for the “Districts 2022-2024″ tender and only 33,788 euros were used as direct contributions to shopkeepers”.
Andrea Catania, city secretary of the PD, explains: «We have been asking the same question to the deputy mayor of Berlin since 2018 and we get the same inconclusive answers. Certainly in these years of crisis, first with Covid, then with the increase in the cost of energy and inflation, it would have been necessary to strongly support shopkeepers and the resources to do so were there.”
Catania concludes: «Yet in the area we are fortunate to have active and proactive associations, what is missing is a trade plan that identifies priorities and a planning of interventions».
