Lamps off and cities in the dark (with related safety problems), cut services (from sports facilities to playrooms, from kindergartens to canteens), closed and cold offices. The high bills and the price increases of diesel and gas will inflate, and already are, the payments of the municipal administrations to excess.
"Turning off the office lights or the heating half an hour earlier are small panels on the forehead of the dying man", remarks Emiliano Deiana, president of the National Association of Italian Municipalities of Sardinia.
The "blow" of August
In various municipalities on the island, the energy bill that arrived in August made the treasurers shiver. In Oristano it went from 181 thousand euros spent in that month in 2021 to 466 thousand paid a few days ago. In Cagliari even the bill has tripled, rising from 249 thousand to 611 thousand, in Sassari from 180 thousand to 312 thousand.
The trend
The trend of Sardinian municipalities above 20 thousand residents (but clearly applies to all) is on the rise. From the Municipality of Cagliari, as of September 1, 3,678,448.76 euros have already been spent, in all of 2021 they were 4,079,100.59 and if all goes well the energy account will close with 5 million and 300 thousand euros.
In Oristano even in 9 months more has already been spent than paid in the entire past year, while in Nuoro the exact half but the forecasts are also black in this case.
"Exceptional interventions"
«Here we are facing not a local crisis, but a continental and global breaking point - underlines Emiliano Deiana - The EU needs to find an agreement on the price of gas which determines the increases in the cost of energy. In Italy - the Government and the Region - must provide for exceptional financial interventions in favor of the Municipalities to avoid local defaults or the cut in services to citizens. The interventions can be financed with the increase of VAT revenues on energy products. The same and contextual attention must be paid to citizens and businesses ”.
