Hunting: Sicily, the National Hunters Syndicate writes to the Region on the destination of expenditure of the regional concession fees paid annually by Sicilian hunters, "to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar".
The National Hunters Union writes to the General Accounting Office of the Sicilian Region and pc to the Presidency of the Region and to the Cabinet Office of the Regional Councilor for Agriculture, Rural Development and Mediterranean Fishing regarding the destination of expenditure of the concession fees regional payments paid by Sicilian hunters in recent years.
Below we publish the full text of the letter from the National Hunters Union to the Sicilian Region:
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Subject: regional concession fees paid annually by Sicilian hunters. Destination constraint.
Pursuant to art. 23, paragraph 1, of Law 11 February 1992, n. 157 “The regions, in order to obtain the financial means necessary to achieve the purposes envisaged by this law and by the relevant regional laws, are authorized to institute a regional concession tax, pursuant to article 3 of law no. 16, and subsequent amendments, for the issue of the authorization to practice hunting referred to in article 1970.
From another angle, art. 30, paragraph 1, of Regional Law no. 33 of 1 September 1997, n. 33 states that "for the achievement of the purposes of this law, the regional concession tax is instituted, for the release of the license to practice hunting, the amount of which is set at an annual rate of 50 percent of the national government concession tax. for the hunting area of residence. …… ".
That said, we hereby mean that for several years now, the above taxes, the total amount of which is around four million euros, instead of flowing into the expenditure items intended to finance the restocking of fauna, environmental improvements, the establishment and management of protection oases, restocking and capture areas, public wildlife breeding centers, as well as the surveillance activities of hunting associations, etc., are distracted into other chapters intended to cover the current expenditure of the Region; only an insignificant part of this revenue is assigned to the Wildlife Service of the Agriculture Department of the Regional Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Mediterranean Fisheries.
A corollary of this is the elimination of those resources necessary to finance the management activities listed above which, taken together, would ensure a satisfactory state of conservation for wild populations. Given the above, in order to avoid that this Syndicate is forced to take legal action, this Accounting Office is warned to restore the failed state of Legality, and as a result assign the resources in question to their natural destination. It should be noted that 90% of the annual revenue is paid by hunters in the period between 20 and 31 August.
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Dr. Giovanni Di Giunta
National Union of Hunters
(23 August 2014)