Federagenti wonders if the money invested by the state in ports resources well spent. A doubt that until yesterday appeared to be a heresy if formulated aloud by exponents of the maritime-port companies. The money used in the ports, up to a few hours ago, they were indeed too few for entrepreneurs compared to those that the ports put into the state coffers. Until Yesterday, the perplexity expressed for some investments in the ports was expressed by representatives of the port communities more than anything else for fear that these would determine undue competition to the detriment of activities, perhaps theirs, already well established.

To cast the first stone today is the apostate Paul Pessina, president of the federation of shipping agents Italians, who called for the creation of "a database of terminals not only containers, designed or under construction in the various Italian ports, and therefore a map that highlights, on the one hand, the types of traffic and, on the other hand, the actual demand for the market for these types of goods and services in certain areas of the country".

Recently, a rain of money. A 2022 report produced by the Technical Structure of mission for the strategic direction, the development of infrastructure and the high surveillance of the Ministry of Infrastructure Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility, from the Unit of the PNRR Infrastructure Mission and the Directorate General for supervision of the Port System Authorities, transport maritime and waterways of the same ministry in collaboration with Assoporti quantified in over ten billion euro the total requirement to cover planning planned for the port sector, of which more than nine billion euros have already been made available, resources largely deriving from the Plan National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), the National Recovery and Resilience Plan Complementary (PNC) and other programmes.

A huge mass of rainwater which, in part more or less less consistent, flows into streams destined to dry and Do not irrigate crops that could bear fruit. Speaking of a revision of the PNRR "which appears inevitable in light of the delays that loom over the majority of the works financed through this extraordinary tool", Pessina noted that, "for some types of traffic, the offer Italian port sector, after the completion of the works envisaged in the PNRR, could be more than double the growth waiting for the market, not to mention the fact - highlighted the president of Federagenti evoking the phrase "cathedrals in the desert" - which could end up in the spotlight decisions to build port infrastructures in territories where These terminals and quays make no sense, except to satisfy parochialism and clientelism".

Recalling that today the PNRR allocates 3.8 billion in ports alone of euros, to which the specific allocations for the airports must be added of the South (2.6 billion), those to railways (more than ten billions between high-speed and railway lines in the Mezzogiorno) more funding for the logistics sector, Pessina observed that "many have forgotten that those which are now the main container terminals in the country, that of Gioia Tauro and that of Genoa-Prà, had been designed (based on incorrect market choices and assessments) as a hub for the importation of coal and had become cathedrals in the desert saved by an entrepreneurial or managerial intuition". At what the president of Federaagenti says today, would seem to be well spent the money on these two port works that years ago they looked like cathedrals in thin air. And here the need seems to evaporate to create a database like the one requested by Pessina.

But what Pessina perhaps means is that the season is about to end and that the next national governments and the Upcoming port governance will have to deal with land soaked in water but, yesterday as in the future, unproductive. For the president of Federagenti, "today it is essential that the country should seriously question itself about what is necessary and on what is not the result of evaluations economic attention". Evidently, for Pessina today it is It is essential to do what was certainly better to do yesterday.

"We realize," Pessina concluded, "how much it is It is complex to apply criteria of good governance to public works, but we are willing in turn to roll up our sleeves and help the public decision-makers to spend resources well and not recklessly that, even in the territories benefiting from non-project market demand, could be diverted to real necessity".

But the design is now largely behind us and Atmospheric precipitation is decreasing. The foundation stone of Pessina seems thrown into the void. If no one says what the port public works that do not meet market demand, and neither do the shipping agents who would have the skills to express themselves in this sense, let alone expect that politicians who, unlike entrepreneurs, have to do so what to do with the electorate.

Bruno Bellio