Skyrocketing bills and prohibitive costs that do not spare commercial activities and the elderly. In the shadow of the statue of Carlo Felice, in Cagliari, the stories of 76-year-old Franco Pili intersect, who as a solution hypothesizes that of no longer turning on the light and unplugging the refrigerator. His friend Dario Schirru instead takes it out on Putin.
And then there are the owners of the bars, like Claudio Ara of “Luchia”: «I went from 1,900 euros a month to 5,700, in practice the bill has tripled. It seems clear to me that the situation is dramatic. «I'm leaving coffee for one euro, as a form of resilience - he adds, but starting next month I'll be forced to slightly increase everything else. I'm sorry, but it's the only way not to be forced to lower the shutter».
The period for restaurateurs was also difficult: «Electricity has tripled, gas has doubled, the situation is very heavy», confirms Alberto Melis, sixty-five employees divided between the three premises between the city center and Poetto, and another thirty arriving together with the season summer. «The costs are unapproachable, from raw materials to electricity, and obviously it would be unthinkable to give up a refrigerator, blast chillers, fryers or air conditioning, you would have to change jobs. We are gritting our teeth, waiting for a decisive intervention by the State. Of course, it is impossible to keep prices unchanged, but we will try to burden our customers as little as possible».
"The situation is truly dramatic, many elderly people are forced to choose between eating and taking care of themselves," says Sisinnio Zonnedda, regional vice president of ADA, the Association for the Rights of the Elderly. “Every day we hear a cry for help from those who, faced with current prices, find it difficult even to eat, and certainly cannot afford the insane rates of private medical visits or wait for public health waiting times,” he explains. «The elderly should be safeguarded in every way, also because they are often the ones who guarantee the subsistence of children and grandchildren, indeed, they were, because now many are now forced to go to Caritas. We are not talking about small sacrifices, but about giving up basic treatments and basic necessities, because we have reached the point of choosing between paying for electricity and the cylinder or buying medicines».
Sarah Marci
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