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February 8, 2021
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- Agostinelli's harsh call to a sense of responsibility
of the port community of Gioia Tauro
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- The container terminal - warns the COMMISSIONER of the AP -
is not at the center of the shipping world and it's not the
essential reference for the needs of the shipowner
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 The Extraordinary Commissioner of the Port Authority of
Gioia Tauro, Andrea Agostinelli, has published an open letter
to the port community to urge them to demonstrate
mutual sense of responsibility and mutual commitment to a
moment when the Calabrian port port port seems to return to a
critical phase that was hoped to have been overcome with the assumption of
on the side of the Mediterranean Shipping Company
(MSC), through Terminal Investment Ltd. (TIL), of the entire
control of the management of the Medcenter Container Terminal (MCT), the
container terminal of the Gioiese port.-
- An explicit letter, up to rawness, which makes it clear
the critical issues of the port of Gioia Tauro. Problems that
other Italian ports in which the management of the
containerised traffic is entrusted to only one operator.
Terminal operator also that, being part of a group
owner, inevitably inserts the Calabrian port into a
network of containerized maritime services that is what
msc and the shipping companies with which the group
Cooperates. This, of course, involves both opportunities,
from that of interest on the part of the shipowner of
use a port where it operates a terminal, as well as risks, between
which those to become a single-customer port and therefore to be
subject to the evolution of the maritime traffic of the only user.
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- A letter in which Agostinelli urges the community
port to which the letter is directed, but indirectly -- you
could observe -- even local and governmental institutions that
have always spoken of the port of Gioia Tauro as the element in
able - alone - to revive the Calabrian economy and - because
no -- that of the whole Mezzogiorno, to remain with your feet for
land, because the port can so create
opportunity and growth, but do not lead to the outline of scenarios
far-fetched and illusory.
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- "The continuous, sometimes nagging, trade union procedures of
"cooling", the management of which is devolved to the
Port Authority - agostinelli's letter begins - I
require reflection, all the more necessary the more necessary the more
the image of the docks of the port of Gioia is jarring
Taurus these days desolately empty. After a 2020
extraordinary despite the health emergency, and in absolute
countertredence on the national scene, in these first weeks of the
2021, port traffic fell sharply, and
important trans-ocean shipping lines have been
temporarily diverted elsewhere.'
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- 'Congestion of quays, port works to which
this Authority also contributes, a partial
in operation of mechanical means and excessive slowness
port operations - explains Agostinelli - these are the causes of the
negative moment that the port is going through. It will not be
needless to say , specifies the Extraordinary Commissioner
port authority - how the terminal driver is
respecting to the letter a very robust investment plan, and
three further grues of the latest generation will be placed in
dock during 2021, and how the Port Authority is
supporting this effort from the point of view of the
and in the technical and functional adaptation of the quays.
Just as we must not forget how the terminal -- with
commitment and sacrifice of all, workers in the first place - both
remained operational even in the worst moments of the pandemic and did not
one hour of cassa integrazione has been requested.'
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- "But at the same time- continues Agostinelli - we must
know with absolute clarity -- and the circumstances of these days will
confirm hardness -- as Gioia Tauro is not the terminal
containers at the heart of the world of shipping, and
above all is not the essential reference for the needs of the
of the shipowner, far from it; other solutions are well possible, in addition to
beyond the Mediterranean, where if not the cost of labour, the
expediency of port operations is a decisive factor
in the choices of shipowners. And the same goes, all the more so,
also for the automotive terminal, for which the alternative is
even closer and it's called Salerno".
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- The letter goes on to recall the initiatives that the
port has undertaken to ensure the competitiveness of the
port in the global containerised maritime market. "We have
made available to the port - writes Agostinelli - a new
rail gateway, a new, strategic opportunity, at the
price of untold bureaucratic difficulties, due to knots
unresolved since the time of the construction of the port and to atavistic
litigation that we're laboriously trying to bring to solution
with the support of the Calabria Region and the dialogue with the
Commissioner of CORAP, Regional Consortium for the Development of
Productive activities. And we have, in every way and in every
circumstance, urged the national "policy" to
untie those infrastructure nodes that to date prevent the
port of Gioia Tauro to express and put to good use the strategic
position in the middle of the Mediterranean. And again. Between two
weeks the successful tenderer will start work on
completion of the west quay, first step to
the establishment of a naval repair hub in the port of
Gioia Tauro, until five years ago a forbidden dream closed in a
drawer.'
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- In the letter, the Extraordinary Commissioner also urges the
port workers to take their share of responsibility,
as an essential element of the port community. "But
- continues Agostinelli - is on "human capital"
that I want to dwell on conclusively. If it is true that
terminal operators and the Port Authority are missing
very important and substantial investments in the means and
infrastructure, I think there's a path yet to be taken
on the qualification and enhancement of workers.
"Intangible" investments, in the form of attention
"training" but also to processes aimed at
make them feel "port community", the key to
my opinion to make our work well and in continuity our
Porto. We will first ask the Calabria Region for a
essential support for the training of workers
currently registered in the Agency, with a view to a possible
transformation of the Agency into an enterprise at the end of the
required by the law constitutive of the same. To workers
and the trade unions representing them
we ask to have our own vision, to feel part of a
project that up to two years, between crises and redundancies, seemed
an unachilable chimera that today makes Gioia Tauro an unfeasible
national "paradox". We ask them to commit themselves,
responsibility, self-denial, assuring them of our
commitment, our responsibility, our self-denial.
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- "That dream - concludes Agostinelli - is before us today
to us, is the ancient dream of this territory. Just wait
to be translated into investments, productivity,
retro-port, rail, new jobs. Let us not lose this
unrepeatable opportunity.'
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