Petty corruption

The case being made against Guido Bertolasi, the Head of the Civil Protection Service in Italy, is that he accepted bribes, financial and sexual, for contracts within his gift. The Civil Protection Service looks after, for example, rehousing the people of l’Aquila after the earthquake there. It is alleged that several other prominent figures were involved and that Achille Toro, the Chief Prosecutor of Rome, had to resign because he tipped off several people of the impending charges.

No one I know is particularly surprised by this, even if Bertolasi is a popular figure nationally.

It is not alleged at the moment that this is organised crime. I maintain what I have stated before that Berlusconi’s government has done more against the various southern mafias than any previous one. Asset seizures have trebled since it took office, and whilst this amounts only to something like 5% of annual revenues of the Cosa Nostra (Sicily), n’Drangheta (Calabria), Camorra (Campania) and Sacra Corona Unita (Puglia) it nevertheless comes out as about €7 billion.

What is alleged against Bertolasi, and there are dozens of similar cases larger and smaller going on in Italy at the moment, is a result of the culture of petty corruption. If you are in a position where you can award government contracts, or offer jobs to the raccomandati it is assumed that you can be bribed and firms bidding for contracts think that the quality and nature of the bribe is as important as the quality and nature of the services they are offering in their bid. Most Italians will shrug their shoulders and say ‘Everyone is doing it’.

Which brings us to Greece, which is even worse than Italy in this respect. The government may hit against big corruption, as Berlusconi has done against the 4 mafias, but it is hard to get to grips with the petty stuff which, totalled up, amounts to billion upon billion. A Greek doctor reported that every year a tax inspector would come to see him promising, for €1,000, not to investigate his affairs. And this is not an isolated case. Most professional people don’t pay anything like the taxes they should, and most government contracts are inflated 10-20% to cover backhanders.

If the tax inspector were fired, the unions would be up in arms, just as they are in Italy if anyone has a go at the public servants who have two jobs and get someone to clock in for them. But what alternative is there? What investor is going to buy Greek or Italian bonds if they know a large part of the money is being frittered away?

Identifying and firing the guilty is going to be difficult and go against the culture, but a start must be made and that, I think, is it.

PS I forecast a while back that David Mills’ case would be eliminated by the Statute of Limitations, and so it has proved. Now perhaps that it is no longer sub judice, the British can hold an investigation as to whether his wife, Tessa Jowell, then a cabinet minister, knew what she was doing when she mortgaged the family home then repaid the mortgage soon after, thereby washing the money. And this was not the first time she had done it. Well?