The document, that had been expected by the end of last year, is only being published now. The Prefecture promised the final publication within a few days, assistant-mayor Lucio Parente says, “because it will have European relevance”.
And yet, in the meantime, the black-and-white numbers at the counter offices of Gazzolle are enough to reveal the staggering numbers of migrants of the last few years and no end in sight. The prefecture, in fact, announced last week a notice for the “New reopening of the procedure for hosting the reception and assistance service of foreign nationals applying for international protection”.
To date the authorities have been entrusted to aid the co-operatives that participated in the 2016 call financially. After the expiration of their contracts, a new call for tender in the spring was issued to handle the next six months to a year of migrant registration and assistance.
After the 2016 deadline, the prefecture issued the first notice “of the search for 2600 placements”, then in June corrected the estimate with 2900 placements for “asylum seekers”.
Last week the latest announcement kept the forecast on arrivals but widened the time horizon. The duration of the contract that will be signed with cooperatives and associations which will collaborate on migrant reception, will now be two years instead of one.
Therefore, if the time increases, the costs also increases. For every migrant the Italian state has so far paid about €35 per day, largely to cooperatives or associations that take care of all aspects of reception, from language courses to food and housing and to bureaucratic procedures for the international protection request, costing a total of 74 million euros.
The amount is a new record and has quadrupled over the short term. Just two years ago, in 2015, the prefecture sought 795 placements for as many migrants in the province with a budget of “only” 18 million euros. The number then increased to 2500 migrants throughout the province, but for the next few years the number will be much higher.
“At national level,” said Parente, “the situation of migratory flows is stable, but we can not foresee that which will happen in the coming months”.