Fight against organized crime and good administration to restart

In an Italy grappling with attempts at economic recovery after the very serious health emergency of Covid-19, what has it drastically reduced the GDP and accentuated the already existing social unease, it emerges increasingly clearly that the fight against organized crime and the quality of administrative action are the two obligatory points from which to start again. On the one hand, in fact, the post-catastrophic experiences already experienced by the country with the ascertained hoarding of public flows by criminal clans, on the other an administrative action that is still struggling to get rid of the burdens of an obtuse bureaucracy, seem to confirm in a factual way the alarms and concerns of those who identify in them the two main aspects to be monitored and improved. 

In this perspective, it will therefore be good to keep in mind some of the most interesting ideas on these aspects, which emerged during a recent Roundtable "remotely" and organized at the University of Tor Vergata in a period of suspension of normal teaching and conference activities, but made possible thanks to the technical-organizational supervision of Daniela Condò, Program Assistant of the Anti-Corruption Master. An initiative, that of the Master now in its fourth edition, which has had in Gustavo Piga, Professor of Economic Policy of that university, his main inspirer, also strengthened by the results of the analyzes he carried out of the British experience in the administrative field in the final years of the last century and by his possibility of replicating it in Italy; an authentic revolution developed under the banner of professionalism and its adequate recognition.

Starting, therefore, with the issue of contrasting organized crime and its economic firepower, it stands out for its authority the cry of alarm, also launched on that occasion, by Federico Cafiero de Raho, National Anti-Mafia and Counter-terrorism Prosecutor, on the silent but effective pervasiveness of organized crime in the national economic fabric. With the consequence of "infecting both the market, altering its competitive mechanisms, and the ganglia of the institutions themselves". The State and its institutions - this is always De Raho's thought - must also pursue, with determination and with a spirit free from bureaucratic plaster casts, the objective of "really promoting the return of assets stolen from criminal organizations to the circuit of legal economy, continuously monitoring this delicate transfer process” to prevent them from falling under criminal control again.  

As for the issue of corruption, it immediately calls into question the National Anti-Corruption Authority - ANAC and consequently the morphological aspects of the administrative action of our country. About it Ida Nicotra, ANAC Councilor and Ordinary of Constitutional Law, underlined the active and proactive role played by that institution in recent years, also in terms of cultural education, within the Public Administration, had no doubts in recognizing that "the system needs some second thoughts to avoid a merely bureaucratic approach and give certainties to public officials who suffer from a flooding and constantly evolving regulatory framework …”. And he added that unfortunately in this context "the fear of deciding and the abandonment of the space of discretion that the Constitution reserves for administrative action take over...".  

Words that lead us to address without delay the issue of the importance of the quality of administrative action, as a crucial junction for the restart of the country. To support it is Aristide Police, Director of the Anti-Corruption Master and Professor of Administrative Law, which vigorously rejected the choice of the shortcut of the procedures in derogation for administrative action, despite some recent favorable opinions of politicians and other centers of economic interest. In addition to an indisputable work of regulatory simplification, for him the way forward is, instead, that of restoring to administrative action the pivotal role, designed in the constitutional sphere, on the level of social aggregation and economic development. Therefore, training and raising the level of skills and overall administrative culture of those directly involved in the procedures will be essential in this context.  

However, for the success of this redesign and revitalization of administrative activity in Italy and the fight against organized crime, there are two other fundamental interlocutors, which cannot be ignored: the forces of order and businesses. As for the former, the obligatory reference goes to the Guardia di Finanza, engaged in the forefront in ensuring that the annual flow of public spending equal to 50% of GDP, with 140 billion euros attributable to work, service and supply contracts and 116 billion to health care costs, takes place legally, finding a transparent and correct destination. Giuseppe Vicanolo, General Commander of the Interregional Northwest of the Guardia di Finanza, recalled in this regard the probative commitment represented by the annual development of 10 operational intervention plans for the fight against fraud, corruption and waste of public money.

Apart from the significant results obtained in that important area of ​​the country (in a four-year period 3 investigations delegated by prosecutors and the Court of Auditors, investigations of fraud and irregularities for over 3 billion, seizures of 440 million of illicit profits) for Vicanolo still matter moreover, analyze the characteristics of the underlying investigations, the lessons that can be drawn from them, such as useful and immediately applicable experiences against the foreseeable increase in threats and dangers of illegality: by the importance of using telephone and environmental interceptions, including those carried out with Trojan horses, to checks carried out directly on the spot; from the development of forms of international cooperation, to the modification of the nature of bribes to Public Officials, no longer in cash but in the form of various utilities. 

Turning to the business side, the basic question is whether it is really possible to do business in a legal way, without sacrificing the concrete objectives of competitiveness and profitability. That it is not just an attractive utopia he has stated with conviction Nicola Allocca, Governance Director of Acciai Speciali Terni, a company that has personally experienced a radical change of direction in its methods of governance and setting of corporate objectives. While continuing to operate in a logic of business and profit, this company, in fact, according to Allocca, has for some time been inspired by a "visionary disobedience consisting in not being satisfied with managing the risk of corruption, but aiming at its elimination ”. All this translates into a concrete and continuous commitment to monitor data and behaviors that involves each company component, following "a model of company management and operations that is constantly nourished and renewed, while maintaining the principles of integrity, transparency and social responsibility". 

The hope that can be drawn from these statements is that it will not remain an isolated example, but that the world of business and that of public administration will be able, despite the objective difficulties, not occasionally to adhere to the well-defined path Emiliano Di Carlo, Deputy Executive Director of the Master and Full Professor of Business Economics: "orienting the company of any kind to pursue the common good, which means satisfying needs in a context of efficiency". On a concrete level, this translates into "operating with competence and honesty, drawing on certain virtues", such as "the combativeness to mitigate the gap between what one should do and what the company does, wisdom, skill, etc.” A difficult recipe to apply; an unlikely but certainly exciting challenge for those who want to make a legal contribution to concretely aiming for the ambitious goal of a second economic miracle. Good luck Italy!