The results of the Report on corruption prevention and transparency in municipalities dissolved for the mafia
“Unfortunately, the analysis made new critical issues: le commissioner managements, in the municipalities dissolved for the mafia, do not pay due attention or, in any case, they are unable to adequately address the transparency obligations and of corruption prevention“This is what the Adnkronos affirms president of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission, Nicola Morraa few days after the approval, in the Commission, of the
“Report on the prevention of corruption and transparency in municipalities dissolved for mafia”
from which “serious and constant” shortcomings in transparency and non-compliance emerge.
“The role of the Commissioners appointed after a dissolution for the mafia should be to ensure transparency, increase efficiency, effectiveness, clarity and productivity within the dissolved body, with the theoretical objective of making these principles and values penetrate in the daily activities of the Public Administration – observes Morra – In this regard, in fact, we have highlighted the importance of starting theinitiatives to prevent, supervise and control potential criminal infiltrations in the administrative and spending procedures of the Municipalities ” flop of the commissioners? “Yes it is – replies the president of the Anti-Mafia Commission, rapporteur of the Report – Unfortunately, this is what emerges from the data on the lack of transparency despite the commissioning of the dissolved entities and analyzed in this report “.
“The shortcomings are serious and constant in the ‘transparency’ section of institutional sites on which, for example, there are often no lists of assets confiscated for the mafia. During the commissioner’s management, the budget planning cycle is frequently not respected and the integrated chart of accounts is not produced or published, effectively preventing audits from being carried out by the Auditors and the Court of Auditors “.” We examined in Antimafia the reports produced at the end of the commissioner on the municipalities dissolved by infiltration and in 78% of cases no corruption event is assumed during 2019, and all that there it seems unreal“, underlines Morra.
“We are identifying sverification and control instruments of the commissioner activity because the work of the commissioners affects not a little on the future of economic and social life or death of a community. It is not acceptable, for example, that a country like Platì, a municipality in the province of Reggio Calabria, in the past has been a police station for ten years – continues the president of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission -. continue with the administrative remediation activitywithout negatively affecting the community because the dissolution of a municipality by mafia inevitably has repercussions, also in terms of self-esteem as well as image, on the whole community. The commissioners almost always limit themselves to an ordinary management of the dissolved municipalitiesparalyzing them in fact, perhaps due to a lack of responsibility “.
In order for the commissioner managements to be more efficient and to achieve the objectives of transparency and corruption prevention, the Antimafia is ready to elaborate proposals: “The Commission will continue to work on the data collected and analyzedthe road seems to lead us towards one verification of the activities carried out by the Commissioners in dissolved municipalities, which could be followed by gods benefits for those who fulfill their duties best; vice versa think of gods selective mechanisms avoiding bland or even useless commissioners in the future seems to be the way forward “.
When asked if there is an abuse of the regulations concerning the dissolution of municipalities due to mafia infiltration, Morra replies: “Surely what responds to and best respects the cardinal principles on which our entire legal system rests, concerns criminal liability towards individuals. subjects and perhaps not on the whole administrative team. Even if in my opinion the regulations for the dissolution could and should be extended, albeit with due caution to other public bodies “. The data contained in the Report show that some municipalities are repeat offenders to the point of being hit up to three times by the dissolution: “If a municipality is dissolved several times it is clear that the commissioner was not effective, far from it. It is essential to identify mechanisms that guarantee the application of the tools already envisaged to ensure that, once the period of commissioner has ended, the first and fundamental step for the return to normalitythe institution is not again an easy prerogative of the criminal factions, certainly not yet disappeared from the scene “.
“When a municipality is dissolved, the municipal council falls, which is the democratically elected body, but often it is precisely in the technical offices that one should intervene – observes the president of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission – starting from responsible for the prevention of corruption and transparency or putting it in a position to be able to perform the functions envisaged that would best protect the entity “.
With respect to his skills, Anac “has an important role in giving an address in the drafting of the acts and regulations that the Municipalities must comply with. This is not enough because often the companies make use of figureheads who circumvent the prohibitions imposed by the regulations – observes Morra – more stringent directives and strengthened the anti-corruption office. First of all it should focus on confiscations which almost always produce the bankruptcy of a company, sometimes even stopping healthy economies, inevitably linked to the criminal ones. Also there management of confiscated assets entrusted to municipalities should be rethoughtsince there are costs that many municipalities are unable to face and sustain for the management of the asset “.
TO 30 years of application of the law on the dissolution of municipalities for the mafia, various legislative proposals are being examined: “We think aboutidentification of a third-party body that monitors compliance with the legislation on transparency and the prevention of corruption in the municipalities dissolved for the mafiaalso performing a support and impulse function towards extraordinary commissions. Activities to continue to
carry out even at the end of the commissionermonitoring and supporting local authorities in the years immediately following the restoration of ordinary administration “.
Source-www.adnkronos.com