Migrants‘ assistance workers without being paid for months. Palazzotto (Sel): “But Sol. Calatino has received the funds”.

by Meridionews

No Salaries, in some cases for over a year, for workers who deal with migrants‘

assistance in the Catanese area. In one case, even so the cooperatives that manage the service have successfully received payments of local and national institutions. To report the case is the Parliamentary Sel Erasmus Palazzotto, with an interrogation of the Interior Minister Angelino Alfano. Two are the entities mentioned in the document: the Sprar* of Vizzini and the IPAB* of Catania.

Palazzotto explains in the interrogation, that he had learned from the local press “that the people on duty at the Vizzini centre hosting migrants of Sprar had not received their salary for the last four months.”

Payments had stopped in November 2014 and the cooperatives Il Sorriso e San Francesco, should have taken care of and “who run on behalf of the consortium Sol. Calatino the reception centre of the district Albanicchi.” Sol. Catalatino is also part of the management of Cara di Mineo, now along with the association of companies named Casa della solidarietà (House of solidarity) on which in March the Anti-Corruption Authority commented by defining the competitive tendering “detrimental to the principles of competition and transparency ». Member of the commission in charge to judge was Luca Odevaine, arrested in the investigation Mafia capital and considered the key man of the so-called business of the immigrants.

The prefecture, aware of the delay and the situation of the Vizzini workers‘, “undertook to also verify the steps of the bureaucratical process that involves to greater extent the Interior Ministry,” continues Palazzotto. A necessary action, since the delay of salary payments would not depend on a lack of economic contributions by administrations. “The consortium Sol. Calatino has already received from the City of Vizzini a major part of the funds for 2014 by the Interior Ministry – said the deputy Sel –, is about to receive the total amount for 2014 and has not yet received the funds for 2015 because the Interior Ministry has not yet given the funds to the City of Vizzini. ”

But the workers of the Catanese‘ community are not the only ones. Worse are their colleagues of IPAB Educandato Regina Elena of Catania, which claim a credit of more than one million euro.

“They welcome and take care of 120 unaccompanied minor foreigners who receive daily care, food and accommodation thanks to the dedication of the staff who does not receive wages for more than 16 months,” says Palazzotto. Recalling that “other institutions involved like the City of Catania and the Sicilian Region are distinguished by the deafening silence and institutional insensitivity demonstrated.”

For both cases, the deputy Sel asked through parliamentary question for an answer from the Minister Alfano. Asking for his intervention in favour of the workers, “even calling a permanent negotiating table – he concludes – involving institutional and union entities until a solution of the problem will be found.”

Translation: Catherine Scholz

*SPRAR – Protection System for asylum seekers and refugees

*IPAB – Institute of public assistance and charity