It is too late for the Riva
family to try to re-assert control over the ILVA steel mill in
southern Italy which the government hopes to sell quickly to the
right buyer, a senior government official said Tuesday.
Andrea Guerra, strategic advisor to Premier Matteo Renzi on
economic affairs, told the Senate industry committee that the
government wants to move quickly on taking full control of the
troubled steel mill in the port city of Taranto.
The government wants to "speed up the establishment of a
new company," to get ILVA back on its feet for resale, said
Guerra.
To do that, assets frozen in recent government and judicial
moves should be freed up to help defray the "huge" cost of
making the enormous plant safe for those who work there and live
around it.
That is a major step towards selling the plant which was
seized from the Riva family, former owners of the ILVA plant,
following a series of court orders dealing with serious
environmental problems caused by the steel maker.
Unusually high levels of deadly cancers have been reported
in the Taranto area attributed to continued pollution from the
steel plant.
Parts of the steel mill have been closed during
environmental upgrades and clean-ups long ordered by the courts
that previous mill management including the Rivas failed to act
on.
"Without these (problems) Ilva is easy to heal and bring in
profits," said Guerra.
He was reacting to reports the Riva family wants back in on
ownership of the plant that was seized and put under special
administration more than two years ago.
The Rivas have had more than two years to put forward a
news business plan to gain control of the plant and have not
done so until now - when it is too late, said Guerra.
Renzi announced Christmas Eve that the government will take
over Europe's largest steel plant and a key industry in Taranto,
help to get back it back on its feet, and then sell it in a few
years.
Guerra suggested there is no room for the Riva family to
get back into ownership of ILVA.
"I think (capital composition) should be for a very large
part, if not totally, public capital," he said.
"The role of individuals in the case, should be small in
scale".
The ILVA plant has drawn controversy for years over serious
health concerns, culminating in a Save ILVA plan by the Mario
Monti government at the end of 2012 that set out measures to
help the plant survive and preserve as many as 20,000 jobs
during environmental clean-up.
Part of the Taranto plant was seized by judges to cover
some of the costs of cleaning it up and meeting damage claims
related to high levels of cancer in the area, which have
persisted into the present.
Last June, prosecutors in Taranto said they were
investigating concerns that carpenters working at the plant have
suffered thyroid cancer.
On the same day a Taranto court found 23 former ILVA
managers guilty in connection with a wave of asbestos and other
carcinogen-linked deaths in the port city.
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