REGGIO EMILIA – The tender announced in 2016 by the Municipality of Reggio for the management of school transportfrom the paid parkingfrom the Ztl and the service of bike sharing had been prepared for legitimate reasons and it was not tailor-made for Til: the judges of the Court of Reggio (president Sarah Iusto) wrote this in the reasons for the ruling in the procurement trial, which ended last March with a hail of acquittals and four light sentences. There maxi-concession of 25 million euros over 8 years it was the heart of the process and alone represented more than 90% of the sums in question. Accused of bid rigging were Alessandro Meggiato and Roberto Montagnani, managers of the Municipality’s Mobility Service and Procurement Service respectively.
But that announcement so designed, the judges write, “it responded to precise and objective needs of the contracting authority”, i.e. the municipal administration. What needs? Those of “identifying the most efficient formula for managing services”. The analyzes produced by the defense, we read in the reasons for the sentence, highlighted that the merging of services was not a ploy to cut off competition, but an economical choice which earned the Municipality a positive rent of 500 thousand euros per year, instead of 90 thousand.
It is not truethe judges write, that the term for the submission of offers was too short. And it is not even true that the notice was published in August to make it more difficult for unwelcome competitors to submit bids: it was published in August 2016 because only in May did the responsible manager have available all the elements necessary for the tender procedure. On the other hand, the judges add, nThere is not a single element, in the wiretaps or in the investigation papers, that suggests “collusion with Til exponents or a personal interest of some of the accused”. Indeed, the race was a real race. Proof of this is the fact that the Tea consortium, controlled by TIl, won by offering a 30% increase in the fee based on the tender and that the director of Tper, Paolo Paolillo, testified that his company decided not to submit offers because it judged the race is not attractive from an economic point of view.
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