Messina Denaro, mafia and public procurement
Messina Denaro and the mafia-procurement issue. The speech by Marco Mayer, professor at the Lumsa Intelligence and National Security specialization course
The arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro re-proposes the great theme of the fight against organized crime and in particular the fight against the ability of the mafias to make illicit profits from public resources, insinuating itself into the world of joint ventures, business incentives, tenders and supplies.
MAFIOUS OFFENSES AND PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
It is difficult to establish precisely how many illicit profits of mafia organizations can be traced back to public spending. Unfortunately, the subject of the mafia, tenders, incentives, authorizations and various concessions has been tackled in a fragmented way.
In order to prevent the issue from being set aside, Giovanni Falcone wanted to formalize the famous ROS information on State-Mafia procurement when the investigations were still in an early stage and – as everyone knows – the investigation was archived close to the massacre in via d 'Amelio.
Beyond this specific episode, it is clear that operations typical of Tangentopoli were a widespread custom also in Sicily, with the aggravating circumstance of a widespread criminal violence not yet present in the north. At that stage, however, the phenomenon was already national and mainly involved Palermo, Milan and Rome.
Compared to the "partitions" decided at national level, the investigative work of the prosecutors was rigidly territorially compartmentalized. Hence Falcone's idea of creating the DIA and the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office.
THE PROGRESS MADE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE MAFIA
There has been progress since then, but the corruption of public officials and political exponents has not acquired the significance and relevance that the investigations into the mafia and procurement contracts were beginning to show.
Thirty years ago there were no institutional and operational tools for full investigative cooperation between Milan and Palermo, so it was not possible to deal with Tangentopoli and mafia-procurement with a unified vision even when (often) the national companies involved were the same .
Moreover, many "repentant" entrepreneurs preferred to turn to the prosecutors of the north to avoid the aggravating circumstance of the mafia association.
THE ROLE OF THE PNRR
Today, with the many billions of the PNRR, the theme returns with extraordinary relevance. Beyond the fundamental capture of the fugitives, the investigative action is called upon to make a difficult qualitative leap.
The corporate, administrative and political "corruption of customs" is today much more sophisticated and it is much more difficult to establish the line between lawful and illegal, above all due to the ambivalent role of multinational and Italian consultancy firms that work behind the scenes, skilfully combining lobbying, projects, works and subcontracting.
There are even Chinese and Russian companies moving in the field of digital and ecological transition that aspire to grab, perhaps indirectly, a slice of European funding from the PNRR in their supply chains . That would be the end.
It is a world to be explored and on which to turn on the spotlight – now off – of public opinion far beyond the possible judicial implications. A PNRR clientelism is underway that the media should immediately turn the spotlight on.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/arresto-messina-denaro-mafia-appalti/ on Mon, 16 Jan 2023 13:55:35 +0000.