“This week the Council of Ministers was held on Thursday, as tomorrow is Good Friday. Well, every good wish for a peaceful Easter and above all, for a peaceful life.
As regards my Ministry, we talked about investments in railway infrastructure.
Furthermore, we approved the setting up of a new agency for the employment of a few thousand young researchers in universities, with particular attention to the relationship between University and companies, to put a stop to the flight of young talent abroad.
This week there was another important event. We managed to get the 11 signatures needed to present to the Senate a draft of a law that prevents convicts from being candidates.
It is not right that convicts sit in Parliament. Everyone understands this and says so and yet the law to stop this happening hasn’t yet been approved. Today, as Beppe Grillo often repeats, there are more than twenty convicts who are making our laws.
Cesare Previti, in fact, even though he has been declared to be “not a member of Parliament” over a year ago, is still in his place and Parliament hasn’t managed to get together and say “please go away”.
To be able to present this draft law, eleven parliamentarians were needed. In the Senate, there aren’t eleven members of Italia dei Valori and so we had to look for other signatures. In fact without the signatures of at least half those belonging to a particular parliamentary group, it is not even possible to get the discussion of a measure added to the agenda
You’ll say: “Now we’ll get this law, is that so?” We have obliged the Senate at least to discuss it, but they have given me to understand that they are able to make the discussion last a whole term of office. So I need your help: send floods of emails and faxes to the Lower and Upper Houses asking for a discussion of this draft law.
Whether or not it gets approved, at least it’ll get voted on. Now help me to open up the ears of those who are in Parliament.
I have presented a package of measures concerning railway infrastructure to the CIPE, the body that handles the most important State spending.
If it is true, and it is, that there is lots of traffic, lots of smog, and lots of danger for the environment, then we need to take action.
We have set down expenditure for 9,000,000,000 Euro just for the railways, straight away and for the next 4 years.
To be specific, it has been decided that all the activities will go to tender.
For example, there is a stretch of railway from Treviglio to Brescia and already in the 1990s there was an agreement with a private company which made out that it would do the maintenance.
The cost was 2,700,000,000 Euro. Putting it out to tender, it’s possible to get the same work done for 2,000,000,000 Euro. Why should I pay the one that asks me the most?
We have established a series of interventions for more than 2,000,000,000, to modernize all the track.
The reason why there are railway accidents is the lack of safety; in certain sections, there’s still a single track, and it’s possible that there are errors in changing the points. The reason for delays is the lack of functionality in the stations.
We will put in place many small interventions that are not easy to notice but that will bring greater efficiency, improved functionality, and greater safety of the railway network.
They have already told me off as you can’t see what I’m doing. The “bridge over the Straits” or “cathedrals in the desert” serve only for the glory of those who bring them about.
What the citizen needs is the morning train arriving and leaving on time and that it is safe.
Anyone who wants to know more about these investments can visit my Blog and the site of the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Finally we have financed a series of interventions that had already been planned but for which the resources were not available: the Palermo node, where the contractors were all ready to start but without the 900 million of finance; the Naples-Bari; the Taranto junction.
So many infrastructures, in the South and in the North, that have to be financed for an overall sum of 9,000,000,000 Euro.
I believe that this is an important message from who is doing the infrastructure in such a way that the environment is respected, that the road traffic is decreased, and above all the conditions are in place for relaunching the economy.
To put these infrastructure measures in place means creating employment and work. I’m saying this to the companies that are constantly lamenting: stop raising contentious issues and reservations that increase prices.
The projects are there. We have approved them. Participate in the tenders. Let the best be the winners.“