The costs and time frame for building
a planned bridge linking Sicily and Calabria across the Strait
of Messina need to be clearly set out, Giuseppe Busia, the
president of Italy's anti-corruption agency ANAC, said during a
parliamentary hearing on Tuesday
In the decree paving the way for construction "the costs are not
defined and it is not clear what contractual rules will apply,"
Busia told the House Environment and Transport committees in a
joint session.
"We need to bind the general contractor to time and cost in
order to comply with European regulations and protect the public
interest," he added.
It will be necessary "to monitor subcontracting in particular,
both for reasons of legality and for technical reasons,"
continued Busia.
Further, Italy's anti-corruption chief insisted on the need to
"verify" companies against existing white lists of suppliers
that have complied with anti-graft rules and to "digitize" the
procedure "to make it transparent and verifiable".
Parliament is in the process of converting into law a decree
passed by Premier Giorgia Meloni's cabinet in mid-March
resurrecting the Messina Bridge project, which has been
considered by many past governments but has never moved beyond
the planning stage due to fears of corruption and mafia
infiltration, seismic concerns, environmental concerns and the
hefty price tag.
The DEF economic blueprint approved by the government last
Tuesday put the revised and updated costs at 13.5 billion euros
excluding "complementary
and optimization works" to the rail connections" on the Sicily
and Calabria sides of the bridge, which would allegedly cost a
further 1.1 billion euros.
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