Clean up the accounts to avoid bankruptcy, restart investments and reopen construction sites to improve infrastructure and provide better services to citizens.
Around these three key points, Gaetano Manfredi He summarizes the Administration's achievements in just over a year since taking office. The mayor of Naples describes it as very positive, considering the initial situation, which he considers "substantial inaction."
In his long and detailed speech to the City Council, which met in a single-issue session, the former minister, not coincidentally, began with the Pact for Naples, signed a year ago with the Draghi government.
Thanks to this act, he explains, "we were able to avoid bankruptcy, restore our finances, and begin investing. So far, we've met all the milestones set out in the Pact and are finally financially viable, allowing us to resume road and landscaping maintenance."
Manfredi then focused on the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), with "over a billion in funding recovered, to be allocated to projects that will almost all begin construction in 2023." While highlighting almost exclusively the positive aspects, he also addressed some critical issues, such as the low collection capacity.
"It's not just a problem related to the inability to pay," he argues, "but also to the unwillingness to pay and the Municipality's difficulty maintaining a comprehensive and up-to-date list of taxpayers."
The mayor then announced that the external company to which the Municipality has entrusted, through a tender, the solicited or forced collection of taxes, will be operational from May. The aim is to "increase the tax base and ensure that everyone pays a fair amount according to their means."
Manfredi doesn't hide the difficulties in renovating cemetery areas, given the recent collapses in Poggioreale. "There are so many abandoned chapels," he recalls, "and many are owned by confraternities and private individuals, which have not been maintained for decades.
A financial effort and a regulatory framework are needed, because we cannot have so many abandoned spaces, which pose a risk to collective safety." Regarding the tourism boom, which the city has benefited from in recent years, the mayor emphasizes that these flows must be "channeled and strengthened, to reap the fruits of the work done this year."
A similar argument applies to culture, which "must be high quality, but must always have a social impact." Alongside strengthening historic landmarks, from the San Carlo to the Mercadante, the Administration has committed to offering "widespread cultural events that allow participation and enhance the value of places, especially the lesser-known ones." This is the model of the "polycentric city," repeatedly advocated by Manfredi, which must thrive on economic and cultural activities.
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