Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli is
to get sweeping powers to help embattled Mayor Ignazio Marino
address the manifold woes of the Italian capital ranging from
trash to migrants and the environment after major scandals
including a probe into a new city mafia that ran kickback
rackets all over the city.
Gabrielli will effectively be vetting all council acts as
well as the machine for the upcoming Catholic Jubilee, under a
decree approved by the cabinet Thursday.
Jubilee contracts will have new rules to make sure the kind
of infiltration by the gangsters and corrupt officials
collectively called the Capital Mafia will not happen again -
and national anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone may be given
a key role.
The government's decree stops short of putting Rome under a
commissioner and stripping Marino of all his powers - which was
the fate of nearby Ostia, dissolved for mafia infiltration
Thursday - but it gives the mayor from the ruling Democratic
Party (PD) a kind of oversight "tutor" in Gabrelli, Italian
media said.
Marino was not in Rome to hear the announcement of his
effective demotion since he is on holiday in the Caribbean
despite suggestions that he should have come back, including
from PD leader and Premier Matteo Renzi.
From his holiday location he said he was "satisfied" with
the government's moves to help clean up the city.
"The hypothesis of dissolving the city council was taken
off the table and (Interior Minister Angelino) Alfano's words
sweep away the rumours of a commissioner being appointed," the
mayor said.
Marino reiterated his claim that the infiltrations
highlighted by the Capital Mafia probed had happened under the
stewardship of his rightwing predecessor Gianni Alemanno and he
had blocked them with "a wall".
Alemanno responded by saying that Marino was "off the wall"
and that Rome "has never been so abandoned".
Announcing Gabrielli's new brief, Interior Minister
Angelino Alfano said after a cabinet meeting on Rome's woes
Thursday that "I proposed letting the Rome prefect plan
intervention in eight areas with the mayor".
These are parks, trash collection, the environment,
housing, immigration and Roma people camps, the minister said.
Measures will include updating city regulations, setting up
a list of city contractors and new internal control protocols,
and an audit of all city contracts, including with AMA trash
collection and waste disposal company.
Franco Panzironi, formerly the powerful head of AMA, and
three other senior AMA managers were convicted in May of
nepotism in hiring at the firm.
Panzironi was arrested previously in connection with the
so-called Capital Mafia corruption scandal that has rocked the
capital since December.
Council officials from both the PD and the opposition Forza
Italia party of former premier Silvio Berlusconi have quit in
the scandal over a gang led by former rightist militant and
gangster Massimo Carminati and the powerful head of a leftwing
cooperative, Salvatore Buzzi.
The ringleaders were caught on police wiretaps saying that
skimming off contracts for Roma and migrants was "more
profitable than drugs".
Cabinet Secretary Claudio De Vincenti played down the
effect on Marino's status, saying Rome had not been put under a
commissioner like Ostia.
But he had to admit that the situation was similar to the
one in Milan where Prefect Francesco Paolo Tronca was given
powers over the Expo world's fair, again after a string of
scandals.
Rome's legality councillor, Alfonso Sabella, summed up the
situation by pointing out that Gabrielli would be responsible
for the "coordination" of the Rome Jubilee like his counterpart
in Milan, Tronca, coordinates the Expo there.
"I don't think either (Milan Mayor Giuliano) Pisapia nor
(Lombardy Governor Roberto) Maroni feel stripped of their
powers," he noted.
"The only difference is the money...which in Rome is sadly
lacking," he added.
Resources for the Jubilee are billed to come from the Rome
budget, which has a large deficit.
The Catholic Jubilee on Mercy, expected to bring millions
of pilgrims to the Italian capital, runs from December this year
to November next.
Sabella also claimed that the government had "recognised"
the work of Marino's reformed council, saying the eight eras to
be targeted were ones where they had already made "significant
progress".
But he admitted that Rome came out "badly" from the
government assessment and the "administrative machine comes out
devastated, but it was inevitable".
The centre-right opposition Forza Italia (FI) party of
ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi was among those calling for
elections to replace Marino.
FI said that "Romans must be able to choose a new mayor for
themselves and a new government for the capital.
"Rome must return to the vote as soon as possible to end
one of the darkest chapters in its recent history".
It said "we are working towards this goal with civic
movements" including that of (an independent candidate defeated
by Marino in 2013), Alfo Marchini".
FI claimed that the government had "effectively appointed a
commissioner in place of Marino".
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement claimed that Renzi
had "saved" Marino in order to avert being forced to go into an
early general election.
In another statement Thursday, Alfano backed the measures
Gabrielli had taken to respond to a huge row over the lavish and
highly controversial funeral of mafia boss Vittorio Casamonica
in Rome last week.
Gabrielli said he would set up a new liaison group among
police forces to make sure all information on the mafia "got to
the top" and ensure there would be no repetitions.
Alfano said: "I endorsed the decisions of Prefect Gabrielli
and the law-and-order committee" on the funeral.
He added: "We are weighing other moves and we have for
example urged (civil aviation authority) ENAC to start checking
how the flight (of a helicopter that dropped rose petals onto
the hearse) was authorised and a possible revision of the
licenses that were issued".
In other reactions to the government's moves, Cardinal
Agostino Vallini, the Vicar General of Rome, said Rome is "a
spiritually anaemic city" and that explains the moral crisis
shaking the capital.
"Today Rome is a spiritually anaemic city and this leads to
all those negative moral consequences," the Cardinal said in an
appeal launched from Lourdes where he is leading a diocesan
pilgrimage, "that is why it needs new life blood running through
it".
"One needs Christian lay people who in their life and work
environments become points of reference and of fruitful
discussion," the prelate was quoted by Vatican Radio as saying.
Vatican Jubilee chief Msgr Rino Fisichella told ANSA he had
"learned with satisfaction and approval of this package of
(Italian government) measures in view of the Jubilee. They are
significant measures made necessary also by the shortness of
time, but which meet the effective needs of such an important
event".
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