12 April 2007

Let's give a Voice to the Small Shareholders

Text:

“Today there’s no Council of Ministers, it’s Wednesday 11 April and this is a meeting with you, because there’s an extraordinary situation being created around certain very delicate problems concerning the credibility of the institutions.
I’m going to talk about one of these in a separate message. That relates to the position taken by the State Advocacy against the Milan Prosecutors concerning the abduction of Abu Omar.
According to the State Advocacy, the fault for what has happened is to be found in the Milan magistrates who are discovering the abductors and not in those who did the abduction who committed the crime. The other very delicate question is the Telecom Italia affair. Today politicians are asking: should we intervene or not? I believe that if there’s not action taken quickly enough, it’ll be too late. But as usual there’s only discussion.
On 16 April, there’ll be the Telecom shareholders meeting. All shareholders should participate. In fact it’s the usual ones who go, the ones with a tiny percentage of shares but who govern the whole company.
On 16 April at 11 am, I’ll be there at Rozzano. There’ll be a decision to sell and to whom. In fact, there’ll be a formal agreement to accept what has already been decided by the usual wide boys of the moment.
I have tried and I am still trying in every way, to intervene to ask for an urgent decree on two fundamental topics:
- first, that the network is broken off from the service company and that it cannot be transferred from one body to another without the relevant ministerial authorization, as has been done for the motorways. It’s possible to do the same for the telephone network.
- second, that action is taken to eliminate the game of Chinese boxes, that allows for a body that holds just 18% of the shares in a company to take any decision about that company.
The Chinese boxes are permitted by law and this makes it even more serious. We need a decree, but I don’t think that the politicians have the strength and the humility to do this and I’m sorry about that.
However, there is something that can be done on 16 April. Beppe Grillo and I in a small way have tried to gather proxy votes to represent a few thousand shareholders in the meeting.
If only we hadn’t even tried.: they have told us of such an exasperating procedure that in substance, those proxy votes cannot be used.
A special law has been passed to prevent the many small shareholders from exercising their power within the company, so as to allow the few to control everything. This is how serious it is.
But, as I said, on 16 April it’s still possible to do something: take a half day holiday, those of you who have even a single Telecom share and have a picnic at Rozzano from 11 am onwards. Before that go to your bank and get them to give you the certificate that allows you to exercise your right to vote.
Come in procession to Rozzano on that day. A few thousand people who are accredited and who ask to speak will make the turn the tables. It would be a political happening in the noble sense of the word, smashing the agreements and leading to a reflection.
On that day, let all those with Telecom shares exercise their rights. Not so much for the value of the share but for the symbolic value of a democratic gesture to make own’s voice heard.
However, remember that you have to go to your bank and get them to give you the document, the certificate that gives you the authorization to participate.
I believe that united we are strong: when faced with the politicians who do not have the courage to react, when faced with the craftiness of the well known wide boys, the democratic strength of the people can still overturn the result.”

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Economy