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Italy: NGOs denounce unfair state tax fund allocation
Italian NGO Mani Tese raises questions about the allocation practices of the government's 8 per thousand tax funds. Why does culture get 70% of them and world hunger only 1.1%?
di Staff
International development NGO Mani Tese has raised a thorny question. Where do Italy?s ?8 thousands? funds go? The eight per thousand law is a law that is unique to the Italian state whereby taxpayers may declare that 0.8% ('eight per thousand') of their taxes go to a religious confession or to a social assistance scheme run by the Italian State. People are not required to declare a recipient; in that case the law stipulates that this undeclared amount be distributed among the normal recipients of such taxes in proportion to what they have already received from explicit declarations.
Mani Tese has questioned the distribution of funds that, according to them, are unevenly distributed. In 2007 only 1.1% of the total funds went towards fighting world hunger, while 67.9% were allocated for the preservation of cultural heritage. It looks like this year is destined for a similar fate, explains Elias Gerovasi who is in charge of Mani Tese?s projects: ?NGOs have presented project proposals that have almost all been refused, only four out of 56 were approved. On the other hand, 666 cultural projects were approved. The rules clearly state that funds will be allocated according to project quality without taking into account the its social aims. But how else can such a disproportionate allocation be explained??.
?It is a question of transparency? continues Gerovasi, ?and no one understands who is making these decisions, that are, after all, political?. This is why the NGO has chosen to take the matter in their own hands and propose that the Association of NGOs ask for parliamentary action and the definition of clear criteria.
Luigi Gallucci, who is in charge of the department of administrative coordination for the government body that manages the 8 per thousand funds, answers by explaining that: ?Funds are not allocated in a biased way, but it must be remembered that the vast majority of the projects that apply for funding are related to cultural heritage. The decisions taken in 2007 were also determined by the fact that in 2006 funds went exclusively to fighting hunger in the world?.
True. But in 2006 the funds available were no more than 4 million 700 euros, while in 2007 they were 46 and a half million. Further, looking back on records that date as far back as 1999 it can clearly be seen that cultural heritage has always (except for 2006) had the upper hand. Restoration normally ?grabs? at least 3 times as much as all the other categories put together ? that is to say emergency relief projects, refugee assistance projects, and hunger projects.
