The restoration of the public accounts to good health depends on two factors: revenues and expenditure. Yesterday I tackled the first point, the one about revenues, with a proposal for the fight against tax evasion which, it is worth remembering, costs us 200,000,000,000 Euro in unpaid taxes each year.
The second point is the reduction in the costs of the Public Administration and its greater efficiency. The savings can be gained straight away, through many actions that Italia dei Valori will try to get put into effect with specific proposals for laws.
The first is the abolition of the Provinces, often holders of votes for the parties and nothing more, as well as the grouping together of tiny Comuni {towns and villages} at least so that they have 5,000 inhabitants. Today out of a total of 8,101 Comuni there are 5,835 with less than 5,000 inhabitants, most of which are in Piedmont and Lombardy.
The current structure of State-Region-Province-Comune with the addition of the Comunità Montane {Mountain Communities} is costly and awkward and so is slow in making decisions that are important for the citizens. The competences of the Provinces can be handed over to other bodies. The excessive splitting up of the Comuni does not allow for a coordinated policy for the territory and it multiplies the costs of mayors, town or village councillors, Cabinet members, employees and even of the public buildings.