(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 27 - Deputy Premier and Transport and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini said Wednesday that he is hopeful work will start next summer on a bridge across the Strait of Messina to connect Sicily to the Italian mainland.
    The government is pressing ahead with the project to build what would be the world's longest suspension bridge, which has been long delayed due to funding issues as well as fears of mafia infiltration and graft, and seismic and environmental concerns.
    "We are respecting the schedule we set ourselves 10 months ago with a great deal of patience," Salvini told the assembly of the Italian guild of engineers.
    "The aim is, after 52 years of talk, to open the worksites in the Year of Our Lord 2024 and close them in 2032 with the first train, the first car, the first motorbike, the first truck crossing (the Strait) via a stable connection".
    The League leader has said the bridge will cost no more than 12 billion euros spread over 15 years.
    However, Tommaso Foti, the Lower House whip for Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, said Wednesday that he doubted that contracts for the bridge would be ready in 2024.
    "The bridge is an investment expenditure and, therefore, I think it can be a (2024) budget item concerning a multi-year programme," Foti said.
    "I doubt that we will already be at the contracts stage next year.
    "It seems to me that we do not have an executive project at the moment". (ANSA).