Easter is yet to come but the "Via Crucis" for too many retirees in our province of Catanzaro began long before ... They do not carry the cross on his shoulders but the "social card" ... A indecency for hundreds of thousands of retirees (with the crisis also needs a dime seen the miserable pensions) that have undergone a real ordeal ... "Fourteen Stations": the way from retirement to lead the praetorian of Pilate to the tomb ... The first station starts a CAAF patronage or to be informed, which then return with the necessary documentation for the release of 'ISEE. If everything is in place and do not receive any nasty surprises, in many cases for a few cents is not for the card, with documentation in hand the unfortunate pensioners go to present it in a row, at the post office. After these first "station" is a period of "waiting" ... The first when INPS collects applications to ascertain the requirements (not always successful), the second wait after sending the card because it has to come from the Minister of Finance on Pin: the numeric code which allows the use of electronic devices only to those in the know. The days go by but the "famous" code does not reach many. At this point there is a way "forced" other three "stations" at the post office and asked the INPS to INPS (the ballet) to learn, in many cases, the pin because the card does not arrive, the findings not for ... Anger and mortification. But the "lucky" yet the "stations" are not over because, after receiving the Pin, finally go to the grocery store and fill a cart, but, with regret, shame and humiliation many are forced to put everything in place on the shelves because the popular social card, like a flag unfurled by Tremonti, is empty ...
Only a devilish mind could conceive of a tortuous and complicated process to receive alms from 40 Euro per month, in time of crisis, no one despises ...
But it was easier to send these "slices" through the board while avoiding, among other things, an enormous cost? The social card, in fact, is not at zero cost because people with their taxes should pay for the physical production of the card, the percentage for the operators, charging and letters, some 15 million euro ... a huge waste of resources and a clogging of the offices of INPS and Post Office, whose employees, to dispose of the files have been scrambling for answers at times, inconclusive ... The saddest part of this story is that they have been humiliated the most disadvantaged, the poor, the last of the social scale ... A Lenten obligation, fasting and penance, which the Catholic Church begins 40 days before Easter, but that for Italian pensioners, and for many Calabrian started nel mese di dicembre dell’anno scorso…
Piero Mascaro
Segretario Provinciale
