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31 January 2012

Passaparola - Federalism Mafia-style - Filippo Astone

The banks are no longer granting loans to businesses, notwithstanding the fact that they have secured a 50 billion Euro European Union loan. The businesses in question are often facing a stark choice, namely, to shut down or to approach the loan sharks, i.e. the criminals for a loan. The Mafia groups are sitting with a little annual war chest of more than 100 billion, so they are certainly able to satisfy any need, except that shortly thereafter they take over the businesses in question. What we’re doing is saving the banks and handing over the businesses to the Mafia groups. The paradox is that this is going on while down in the South many businessmen are refusing to pay for protection and are therefore risking their lives. The banking system will land up being the victim of its own policies and the Mafia will own the entire Country.

Financial journalist and writer Filippo Astone's Passaparola

The Cosa Nostra and globalization
Good day to you all. My name is Filippo Astone, financial journalist and author of investigative books and I spend my time dealing with business, finance and Italian Capitalism. Italian financial journalism tends to either hustle, sanctifying business and capitalism, or immediately write them off as a dead loss. I, however, have always tried to point out their complexity and I think that the same counts for my latest offering, entitled “Senza Padrini: Resistere alle Mafie Fa Guadagnare” (literally “Without Godfathers: Resisting the Mafia pays dividends”). I took a look at this movement of Sicilian businessmen who are standing up against the Mafia, not for reasons of ethics, principles or heroism, but simply because the Mafia groups are hampering economic development and are therefore harming their respective companies. I have intertwined this story with the destructive economic impact that the Mafia groups have had on Italy. Currently everyone is talking about the financial crisis, yet they conveniently forget that one of the main causes of our decline and our impoverishment has been the so-called Mafia economy. Following the massacres, the Cosa Nostra is in decline and today the Calabrian ‘Ndragheta is the most important of all the Mafia groups. After the 1993 massacres and the Falcone and Borsellino murders, the authorities applied some pretty major investigative and repressive pressure and, at the same time, the international drug traders dropped the Cosa Nostra and began hooking up with ‘Ndragheta instead. The Columbians no longer did business with the Sicilians but turned instead to the Calabrians. If the truth be told, this kind of entrepreneurship that is independent of the protection rackets and free of the Mafia has always existed. Few people know, for example, that there is a small mechanical engineering hub in Caltanissetta that even manages to export its products. The one who began this revolution, together with Ivan Lo Bello, is Antonello Montante, who runs a company called MSA (Mediterranean Shock Absorbers), a company that manufactures special shock absorbers and exports some 70% of what it produces. The shock absorbers used on the “Freccia Rossa” (literally Red Arrow) trains are manufactured by MSA and they therefore don’t need any favours from the politicians or reliance on territorial connections. The new climate created by the decline of the Cosa Nostra and the greater opportunities provided by globalization have benefited these kinds of businesses, which would otherwise have had to remain in the shadows. To this we must add the characters of the individuals who finally realised that it was possible for them to rebel, and the straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that a mafia boss who had concentrated the bulk of his power in the Sicilian branch of Confindustria is now sitting in jail. That individual goes by the name of Pietro Di Vincenzo and he was a major Sicilian construction mogul, as well as being the President of the Caltanissetta branch of Confindustria and President of the Sicilian Construction Federation. The rebellion against the Mafia began in Caltanissetta as a rebellion against Di Vincenzo himself, instigated by a group of young businessmen who wanted one of their members at the head of the local branch of Confindustria but were being hampered by the Mafia. Then, at the same time, there was also the petrochemical hub at Gela, which also happens to be one of ENI’s biggest plants and which had pretty much become an all-you-can-eat buffet for the mafia-run businesses. We mustn’t forget that Gela was one of the biggest Mafia hot-spots in the entire universe. It is no longer so after this rebellion because, in 2007, Engineer Rispoli, the son of a magistrate, came in as the new head of the Gela petrochemical hub whose turnover amounted to quite a few billion Euro. The latter decided to no longer give the business to the Mafia companies, to introduce certain controls on suppliers and to ensure that everything became legal. In the Province of Caltanissetta, of which Gela is a part, Eni controls some 40% of the votes. They introduced a legalisation policy which required all ENI supplier companies to comply with certain rules and so all the crooked and Cosa Nostra suppliers were weeded out, also thanks to the fact that Gela’s legendary Mayor at that time was Rosario Crocetta, who backed these changes because Di Vincenzo was not only a Mafia boss and a construction mogul, but as a construction entrepreneur he also controlled the Sicilian desalination plants. What was happening was that Gela did not have enough water notwithstanding the fact that the town had invested millions of Euro in desalination plants, money that had been paid over to Di Vincenzo and so, for this reason Crocetta decided to oppose Di Vincenzo.

The entrepreneurs take to the Web to save themselves
Montante, Lo Bello, Venturi and Catanzaro were living under constant escort at the time but, as expected, there was obviously a reaction so these entrepreneurs adopted a strategy to take to the Web. Libero Grassi was killed because he was isolated and therefore, by hitting him, the problem would be solved. There are so many of them that even if one of them were to be killed, the network would carry on. Then, in any event, there is the additional benefit of the repressive pressure being applied, which has become extremely heavy indeed. Currently Sicily has a heavy concentration of the best magistrates and the best law and order officers and now, whenever a particularly talented policeman is identified, he is invariably sent down to Sicily. On the one hand this is a good thing, however, on the other hand it could also be a bad thing since perhaps it implies that the less well-trained and less talented people are being left up in the North so, given that the Mafia groups are busy invading the North (for example Asti Province) they are finding it easier to get established there. Up North, people find it culturally more difficult to admit the pervasiveness of the Mafia economy, so much so, in fact, that the directive issued by Confindustria Mezzogiorno (literally the Southern Chapter of Confindustria), chaired by Cristiana Coppola, which makes it obligatory to expel or suspend anyone found to be colluding with the Mafia and was made compulsory for all the southern branches of Confindustria, was instead made voluntary for the northern branches of Confindustria and, to date, only the Assolombarda and Imperia branches have complied. The Veneto and Piedmont branches of Confindustria have no intention whatsoever of complying with a provision that would be relatively simple to comply with if the truth be told. The reason for this is totally cultural in that there is a total refusal to admit that this problem is indeed occurring. This refusal to admit to uncomfortable or negative realities due to factors such as strength of character or morals is the root of many ills. For example, the companies... the Mafia groups (above all the ‘Ndragheta) somehow manage to worm their way into struggling companies because they simply take them over, initially by lending them money. However, any businessman who accepts these loans actually refuses to face reality, namely that he should rather be taking the company books to Court and, instead, he chooses to resort to accepting this so-called help that will inevitably lead to his own demise. There are even some dramatic cases where businessmen have initially let these mafia guys in so that they could borrow money from them in order to keep their struggling businesses afloat, only to later find that their companies have been taken away from them and they were then obliged to act as Mafia agents, quiet little northern businessmen who have now let their companies go and have become mere bookkeepers, accountants and proxies for the Mafia. Mafia terminals, now that’s the right term.

The Mafia chooses local politics
The crisis is extremely beneficial to the criminals because, as it is, these Mafia businesses distort the markets and ensure that the market rewards the worst performers since the Mafia business has the competitive advantage represented by privileged relations with the politicians, the threat of physical force and easy access to money. In an economy that is in crisis, the worst performer with these advantages has a much better chance of weathering the crisis. Not only that, but as the number of companies in difficulty or with a lack of access to capital increases, so the Mafia groups have more companies to which they can offer easy credit. Companies that are apparently healthy but are in fact controller by the Mafia have more cash available than other companies that are perhaps being sold off by the banks that have shut off their lifelines, so the Mafia-controlled companies find it easier to weather the storms.
At this moment in time, besides National politics where they are also active because of their need to influence the major investment decisions and judicial policies, the Mafia groups are even more interested in gaining power at the local level. The Mafia groups’ core business depends strongly on local politics. The movement on the ground, which is where their main strength lies, really needs local politics. They need the construction contracts, and now there is a new line of business in which the Mafia groups are very strong, namely wind power, which requires permits from politicians and is really becoming big business. The minute any piece of farming land is equipped with wind power generators or solar panels, it’s value suddenly increases tremendously, hence the need for these political contacts. The risk is that this federalism that is being vaunted as the solution to all our problems may indeed become a reality as a kind of Mafia-style federalism.
I would like to mention the names of a number of these entrepreneurs who are members of this network that is so tightly meshed that it is impossible to break the bonds. In addition to Antonello Montante and Ivan Lo Bello, there are also Ivo Blandin in Messina, Davide Durante in Trapani, who has had the courage to make 30 suspensions in an area where Matteo Messina Denaro, Giuseppe Albanese in Palermo, Domenico Bonaccorsi in Catania, Rosario Marù, who is Montante’s deputy in Gela, and Giuseppe Catanzaro, who is President of Confindustria in Agrigento and state witness in one of the more dangerous legal inquests against a Mafia boss who was threatening him. As entrepreneur and President of the Agrigento businessmen, Catanzaro headed up the turnaround and engineered some 37 suspensions and expulsions. Pippo Callipo, the man behind the Calippo Tuna brand and special commissioner for Confindustria in Reggio Calabria, has managed to make more than 30 suspensions and expulsions and then there is Alberto Meomartini who, as head of the only large Confindustria branch in the North, insisted on complying with the protocol that includes the expulsion of anyone found to be colluding with the Mafia.

Postato da Beppe Grillo alle 06:37 AM in Information