New Rome City Council has started talks on decentralization

The first sphere that the reform will affect is waste management so that a long-standing issue can be resolved

Rome’s new mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, promised during the election campaign that the way he intended to solve the chronic garbage problem of the Italian capital was by decentralizing the operations of the municipal waste company Ama. What’s more, there is a desire to grant more powers to the capital’s 15 municipalities in other spheres, too. For that purpose, on 26 November the central administration held a meeting at Campidoglio with the mayors of the districts making up Rome in order to discuss the scope of the decentralization.

A resolution to that effect will be approved shortly

Two weeks ago already, the process on the Ama municipal company began with the decision to create an autonomous office headed by its own manager and attached to each of the 15 municipal administrations.

"The new structure of responsibility on a municipal basis is aimed at responding, in a continuous and direct manner, to the needs on urban hygiene services (collection and sweeping) expressed by the different territorial realities with a view to a radical and profound change in relations, first of all with citizens, who will thus find a dedicated figure with a high level of responsibility, as well as with the 15 decentralized administrations of Rome," explained a company press release, quoted in RomaToday.

Rome has long been having issues with garbage pile-ups and inefficient waste collection. So much so, that these were likely the reason that led to the demise of the previous mayor Virginia Raggi.

The Friday meeting was meant to be the first of many to follow, where municipal mayors will get the chance to explain the particular problems that need to be addressed and resolved, especially in terms of resources and personnel.

The objective of guaranteeing an improvement in the provision and quality of services to citizens was agreed as the basis. Other features were the intervention in the activities of the municipal branches, on the implementation of digitization processes, continuing in the wake of the first choices indicated by the new Central Administration with the creation of the territorial Security Observatories.

Among the first decisions that will be adopted by the Rome City Council is the one that offers municipalities the opportunity to take charge of the ordinary and extraordinary maintenances of green areas of less than 20 thousand square meters.