Will there still be so much Beauty in Invitalia’s Infratel?
What will happen to Infratel, the company of the Invitalia group (controlled by the Mef) which deals with telecommunications networks? And what will happen to the managing director Marco Bellezza? Facts and scenarios in the Policy Maker article
New government, new top management for investee companies. The carousel of nominations has already begun and also involves Infratel. The Invitalia group company based in Rome manages infrastructural interventions throughout Italy for the Ministry of Economic Development, with the aim of promoting the digital development of the Peninsula through the implementation of advanced connectivity for everyone.
At the center, however, in this phase, there is the question of the renewal of its top management. Where is Marco Bellezza, former legal adviser to the former Minister of Economic Development Luigi Di Maio in the yellow-green government led by Giuseppe Conte.
WHY THE MANAGEMENT OF INFRATEL IS CHANGING
Beauty, a lawyer and technology expert, has also been part of Cdp Venture, the investment arm for startups of Cassa depositi e prestiti. Now, after three years as CEO, he is about to be replaced and the search for a new name has already begun for the president of Invitalia Rocco Sabelli, as reported by Affari & Finanza in the Repubblica newspaper last week.
The question of the Pnrr is crucial for the present and the future of Italy. To date, 40 out of 55 projects have been completed to obtain the next tranche of funds from the European Union. “The truth is that today, in consideration of the delays accumulated so far, we are not yet able to say whether the interventions in progress will actually be completed by June 2026, as planned at the time, and this also applies to the chapter relating to the ' Connection with the smaller islands', which should be concluded at the end of 2023, in line with the deadlines of the Pnrr” explained the undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for technological innovation Alessio Butti.
ALL THE BUREAUCRACY'S FAULT?
The issue involving Infratel is that of the creation of a single network, an ultra-broadband and fixed TLC infrastructure. What are the current impediments? In the past, in February 2021, Bellezza denied that the problems that were blocking the project at the time concerned bureaucracy. It is not the only nor the real reason for the delays, he argued. And for this he had also come to a clash – via social media – with Franco Bassanini, president of Open Fiber. “If Open Fiber worked in all the already authorized municipalities, we would easily target 2021 and the first half of 2022”, wrote Bellezza. “I'm sorry Marco, but I think @asstel_it and @An_Bion are right: progress is there, the Simplification Decree is a big step forward, but the bureaucratic complications are still too many. On Saturday @OpenFiberIT sent you the list of construction sites stopped awaiting permits,” Bassanini replied.
The tape is long and needs to be rewound slowly. To discover, for example, that the problems for the creation of the single network have reached up to today. So much so that “at present, the two winners of public grants have declared to Infratel that they will not be able to reach the target of 1% of street numbers on the floor by 31.12.2022. Infratel Italia, also at our request, has asked both operators for clarifications on the progress data communicated, so as to be able to fully exercise its role of control over what has been declared” Butti declared last week in a hearing in the Chamber.
ALL FOUR FEET WITH M5S (FIRST) AND GIORGETTI (THEN)
When there was still the Draghi government, that is, when all the parties (except the Italian Left and the Brothers of Italy) pretended to love each other to live together under the same roof, the then Minister of Economic Development Giancarlo Giorgetti had allocated 609 million for the digitization of businesses. And Marco Bellezza's Infratel did not hesitate to praise the decision.
"With the vouchers for business connectivity from the Ministry of Economic Development, a new challenge begins for Infratel Italia as an implementing entity", he wrote on his LinkedIn profile. “In 2021 we started and concluded the phase I vouchers […] and now we are ready for action on the services front as well as on infrastructures. The resources available are significant and there are all the conditions to favor the step change for our SMEs towards VHCN services. Thanks to Paolo Corda and Fabio Bochicchio for planning an important intervention for the country".
IS INFRATEL TRANSPARENT?
A much more than explicit thank you, in short, linked to a fact. To the fact that the management of the 609 million euros could take place, thanks to two decree laws, without making the documents public.
The transparency issue for Infratel dates back to a year ago. It was raised by the director of Start Magazine Michele Arnese, who on Twitter wondered exactly what the non-opacity of the subsidiary demonstrated. Complaining about the lack of updates of the "Provisions" section, which remained unchanged in July 2017. The same, wrote Start Magazine, was valid for the "Activities and proceedings" section and the divisions "Types of proceedings" and "Substitutive declarations and official acquisition data" (last update: February 2018) or for the "Consultants and collaborators" section.
Dear @Invitalia , is this the transparency of your subsidiaries? pic.twitter.com/2Dey5v03tR
— Michele Arnese (@Michele_Arnese) December 17, 2021
In the second episode of the in-depth analysis on Infratel, it then emerged that the burden of no longer updating some sections of the company's portal came from decrees 33/2013 and 175/2016.
The first concerns precisely the reorganization of the regulations concerning the right of civic access and the obligations of publicity, transparency and dissemination of information by public administrations. Transparency is defined as "a condition of guarantee of individual and collective freedoms, as well as civil, political and social rights, integrates the right to good administration and contributes to the creation of an open administration, at the service of the citizen". And in art. 2a, c. 2, lit. b, or the section cited by Infratel, we read that the transparency discipline envisaged for public administrations also applies, to the extent compatible, "to publicly controlled companies as defined by the legislative decree issued in implementation of article 18 of law 7 August 2015, no. 124. Listed companies as defined by the same legislative decree issued in implementation of article 18 of the law of 7 August 2015, n. 124”.
The second decree, on the other hand, speaks of the "establishment of companies by public administrations, as well as the purchase, maintenance and management of shareholdings by these administrations, in companies with total or partial public, direct or indirect participation" , thus safeguarding companies like Infratel. On whose future, now, the position of the managing director is at stake.
(Article published on Policy Maker )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/marco-bellezza-infratel-invitalia/ on Mon, 26 Dec 2022 06:36:28 +0000.