Cava de' Tirreni, 1,2 million euros in damages to the treasury: invitation to deduct for the mayor

A notice to pay taxes was served by the financial police of the Naples Economic and Financial Police Unit, on behalf of the Campania Regional Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Auditors, against the mayor of Cava de' Tirreni (Salerno), the deputy mayor, and 16 administrators and 4 municipal managers, for alleged financial damages of over 1,2 million euros.

The case concerns the purchase, in 2010, of the industrial area known as "ex Cofima".

From the administrative-accounting investigations carried out by the Public Expenditure Protection Group of the Pef Nucleus of Naples, it emerged that the real estate complex was acquired from a bankruptcy procedure at a price of 4.644.000 euros, by signing a multi-year bank loan with a private entity, rather than with the favorable and subsidized Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

Furthermore, the operation was proposed, approved and approved in the space of just 6 days (between 5 and 11 October 2010), "without any planned spending forecast - underlines the Gdf in a note - without identifying a clear public purpose for which the asset should be allocated and without acquiring the required technical opinions also for the purposes of an appropriate valuation of the asset".

The lack of such procedural steps, according to the accounting judiciary, "It effectively entailed, in addition to resorting to debt on the credit market, the costly purchase of a property burdened by numerous unauthorized construction practices. Not only has the building complex never been used, but, starting in October 2021, it was put up for sale by the Municipality at public auction, which ultimately went unsold."

The Public Accounting Prosecutor's Office has assessed the public administrators who endorsed and approved the purchase of the property as having suffered damage to public finances, quantified, up to December 2022, at €1.230.501,22, equal to the interest due and paid on the mortgage installments not yet time-barred.