The planned bridge across the Messina
strait between Sicily and mainland Italy will have an updated
cost of 13.5 billion euro, the head of the project company
Stretto di Messina SpA said Tuesday.
"The figure we have discussed so far is 12 billion, which
however did not include the updates required by law", said the
CEO of Stretto di Messina, Pietro Ciucci, on the sidelines of a
Unioncamere conference on the Strait Bridge.
"We believe that 13.5 billion is the updated value and we are
defining the agreements with all the different contractors, we
are evaluating the requests presented by the various bodies and
Service Conferences and it is a phase that will be concluded
soon", Ciucci said.
"Therefore we believe that 13.5 billion is the updated value to
aim for".
Transport Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, the
bridge's latest and curret champion, said earlier this month
that the construction of what would be the world's longest
suspension bridge would be the biggest anti-mafia operation
imaginable, after criticism of possible Mob infiltration.
"It will create more than 100,000 jobs according to the
company's estimates and will be the largest anti-mafia
operation," the League leader said at a conference on the
project.
"Because someone says: don't build the bridge in Sicily and
Calabria because there is the Mafia and the 'Ndrangheta'. It's
crazy. The mafia thrives where there is desperation, where young
people have no future and no work. The bridge will bring work,
wealth, beauty, will save tons of CO2 in the air, so it will be
one of the greenest bridges in the world".
The bridge is currently scheduled to come into use in the early
2030s.
The project, which was first championed by late three-time
ex-premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, has been delayed
due to its high cost, environmental concerns, and fears of mafia
infiltration on both sides of the Strait, by 'Ndrangheta in
Calabria and Cosa Nostra in Sicily.
Salvini, has said construction sites will open by the end of the
year and it will take seven
years to complete the bridge.
It will span over two miles, or 3.2 km, and become by far the
world's longest suspension bridge.
Currently, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey holds the record
with a span of 2,023
metres (6,637 ft).
The project has been tweaked several times, most recently to
raise its height so that cruise ships can pass underneath.
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