OREF KOs Rome council balance sheet (6)

(ANSA) - Rome, September 29 - The Organism of Economic and Financial Review (OREF) on Friday rejected Rome city council's consolidated balance sheet. OREF said the balance sheet did not faithfully represent the financial state of the city council. The administration, led by anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) Mayor Virgina Raggi, had been aiming to get the balance sheet, including losses for transport company ATAC and the balance sheet of troubled waste company AMA, approved by tomorrow.
    Rome budget councillor Gianni Lemmetti said OREF's verdict "is not binding so we are going to take the balance sheet into the council chamber". The chairwoman of OREF is under investigation in Rieti for "serious crimes such as fraudulent bankruptcy," the Rome M5S caucus leader Paolo Ferrara said. "The suspicion that OREF is profiting from its task to do politics is legitimate," he said. "Above all because for months we have tried to build a relationship of correct institutional collaboration with the auditing organ". OREF President Federica Tiezzi told ANSA Friday "the crimes I have been accused of are a matter of situation which will be shortly cleared up and in which I find myself involved without any foundation. I am certain that everything will be cleared up shortly".
    Other M5S members said that "if the members of OREF want to play politics then they should resign".
    Raggi has come under fire for allegedly not spending enough on transport and rubbish woes, but says her hands are tied because of debts incurred by previous administrations.