Armando Danella, Manager for the Special Law in the City for twenty years, has filed a complaint with the Corte dei Conti
By Alberto Vitucci
18 February 2021
VENEZIA. For twenty years Armando Danella has been the Manager for the Special Law in the City. As such he has followed the meetings of the Comitatone and about MoSE. Today he continues his battle.
“The triumphalism of the first tests that went well”, he says, “cannot erase the history of a badly flawed and unreliable work, which today we find ourselves forced to manage. Criminal and guilty behavior and the connivance of public officials have brought us to this point”. So Danella collected the immense documentation in his possession, and sent an exhibit-complaint to the Corte dei Conti.
It asks that the managers be identified and made to pay damages. “I also asked that their assets be partially seized to guarantee payment to the State” he explains. Damages which, according the City Manager, for several years a member of the Ambiente Venezia group, are incalculable.
Six billion Euro to build the work, and at least 100 million a year for its management and maintenance. Errors and “subpar” work. An executive plan that doesn’t exist, as has also noted by engineers Paolo Vielmo, Vincenzo Di Tella and Gaetano Sebastiani. And hundreds of millions of Euros to repair the problems emerging today: the hinges, the infiltrations, the corrosion and the sediment.
“All of the problems documented since the early 1990s”, writes Danella in the dossier sent to the finance magistracy, “with the opinions of the Superior Council of Public Works from 1990. And then the negative Environmental Impact Study of 1998. The definitive project of 2002, writes Danella, never took this into account. Alternative studies and projects have also been ignored, in order to move forward on the path of monopoly”.
Then there are the errors which, according to Danella, are coming to light today. “They predicted a rise in sea level of 22 cm in the next century”, he says, “today we know that it could be even five times more. The costs of maintenance were underestimated at 12 million a year, of which 1 million for personnel. Today we know that it will require at least 100 million”. And finally, there is the number of closures of the dams, predicted to be 6 times a year. In the trimester October-December 2020 there were 16, and as of today 20.
“Just to pay for the tests in October and December the Consorzio presented the Proveveditorato a bill for 15 million”.
Underestimations and opinions on the merit of the work, in many cases “forced”, also featured in the criminal inquest of 2014. But according to Danella much remains to be discovered. So he has asked the financial judges to verify who were the consultants and officials present that voted in favor of projects that then turned out to be wrong. Such as the members of the CTM (Technical Committee of the Magistracy), the general directors of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, and the working groups of the Ministry of Public Works, at the time under Minister Di Pietro (Prodi government), which promoted MoSE and blocked all the alternatives presented by the City. And finally, the responsibility of the Region, the Ministry of Scientific Research, and of Corila, who had the monopoly on the studies.
“A break with the past is required”, says Danella, “that we still don’t see. It’s not possible, for example, to transfer the guilt and debts from the Consorzio to the new Agency. It would be a sort of amnesty, and a double damage for the citizens”.
It’s a battle the Danella does not intent to give up. “History should be read studying the documentation”, he says, “MoSE is a work of the First Republic, thought up in the early 1980s, entrusted to the monopoly of Consorzio Venezia Nuova, costing six billion Euro. And today many of the technical issues remain unresolved, such as its functioning in case of rough seas and the phenomenon of oscillation and resonance in the dams. And also the issue of using the system in a contest that has profoundly changed, in which the rise in sea level would force us to close the lagoon every day in winter. It’s a bad choice, forced on the Venetian community, to whom someone must respond”. Here then is the new complaint, which follows a report presented several years ago, after the criminal investigation into corruption. “We have seen that the Corte dei Conti is now investigating the hinges”, says Danella, “we are ready to explain”.
Source: La Nuova Venezia
Campaign For A Living Venice 