18 September 2006

Letter to il Sole 24 Ore

I’m publishing a letter that I’ve sent to il Sole 24 Ore in reply to an article that defined me ‘interventionist without limits’ and that considers the possibility of occult powers guiding my actions.

“Dear director,
In your newspaper I’ve read an article signed by Tamburini that defines me ‘interventionist without limits’ and puts forward the idea that there might be people and powers of the occult that guide my actions.
The definition ‘interventionist without limits’ I take as a compliment. A Minister that unceasingly acts to affirm the centrality of the laws of the State and the rights of citizens, these are the objectives of my government actions. Just a Minister doing his duty.
The hypothesis of sinister powers guiding my actions now and at the time of Mani Pulite {“Clean Hands”}, I reject categorically. I have nothing giving me inspiration unless it is the sense of justice and the wish to improve this country. In recent years, even thanks to the news coverage, we have witnessed a continual economic and industrial decline of Italy.
One of the causes, certainly not the only one, is the privatisation of natural monopolies. These are privatisations done using debts and without rules that really protect the interests of the State. From the State monopolies, we have gone to private monopolies, whose objectives can be none other than profit, without giving advantages to the citizens, with heavy job losses and a reduced ability to compete on international grounds.
Briefly I would like to discuss the merits of Autostrade-Abertis and Telecom Italia mentioned in the article. In the former case, the Government was mandated by the Council of State to simply apply the law.
A construction company, as in the case of Abertis, cannot have a license to hold motorway concessions. On the other hand, Telecom Italia is victim of about 41,000,000,000 Euro of debts. It is the victim of Chinese boxes, that must now be disentangled if we want a transparent Stock Exchange, if we want investments that have been missing because of the original handover through debts, because of a strategy of backwards and forwards of the integration of the landline and the mobile phones and then to the separation of landline and mobile, of a high value of Telecom shares as seen in Olimpia (the controlling company), that is double the value on the Stock Exchange.
I have no doubt that your newspaper will give generous coverage to these themes in the future.” Antonio Di Pietro

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information