Il train disaster in Puglia "unfortunately reveals an objective link with corruption". The accusation was launched by the president of the Anti-Corruption Authority, Raffaele Cantone, who presented the report on the activity carried out by the Anac in 2015 in the Sala Koch of the Senate on Thursday morning.
According to Cantone, the accident which cost the lives of 23 people “is probably the result of human error, but also a consequence of an atavistic problem of our country in putting in place adequate infrastructures and one of the reasons for this is to be identified in corruption”. Even the prosecutor of Trani, Francesco Giannella, believes that "talking about a human error is correct, but absolutely simplistic".
The section of the North Bari regional railway where the head-on collision between two trains proceeding in the opposite direction took place two days ago is still single-track and is not automated. Circulation is entrusted to communications between the station masters and this explains how a human error could be at the origin of the massacre.
The funds for the modernization of the section had been allocated in 2009 and the works were expected to be completed by October 2015, but they never started. essentially due to a series of bureaucratic problems.
"The construction of some large infrastructures - continued the number one of the Anac, who supervises the contracts - confirmed numerous critical issues, such as deficiencies in the design and the application of numerous variations and reservations. Also due to long and complex disputes, many works have stalled and have not yet seen the light".
Among these, also "significant road infrastructure designed for the development of the South”, such as the Palermo railway ring, which, “put out to tender in June 2006, in October 2015 recorded a physical progress equal to 3% of the amount of the works”, or the A14 Bologna-Taranto motorway, “for which three settlement agreements have been signed".
Furthermore, Cantone underlined that “widespread anomalies have been detected in relation to other railway networks such as the high-speed train in Florence and the Metro C in Rome. The story of the dam on the River Melito is paradoxical to say the least: included in the programs of the former Cassa del Mezzogiorno, with a project approved in 1982, to date not only has the work not yet seen the light, but it is even being revisited the same action".
And yet, according to the President of the Anac, the first "antibodies" within the system are also beginning to be glimpsed, as evidenced by "the considerable increase in reports in 2015".
