Calabria, the health commissioner kicked out? The yellow-green government appointed him: on the proposal of Giulia Grillo and with the OK of the Northern League player Stefani

“The Calabrians immediately deserve a new commissioner, fully capable of facing the complex and demanding health challenge”. So the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announces the defenestration of Saverio Cotticelli, the Calabrian health plenipotentiary who resigned a minute before being thrown out for the surreal fool of which he became the protagonist: during an interview he candidly admitted that he was not aware of the provisions of the Government that indicated him as ” responsible for the operational program for the management of the Covid emergency “, of a region that has just slipped into red zone and struggling with a lack of doctors and ICU beds. The fool in front of the cameras is such that the government had to intervene. And by the hour the appointment of the substitute is expected.

General Cotticelli had been entrusted by the first government Conte. It was December 7, 2018, Calabrian healthcare was in dramatic conditions, not very different from today’s, after well 11 years of commissioner. The proposal had arrived on the table of the Minister of Economy and Finance who is nominated (at the time he was led by Giovanni Tria) by the then Minister of Health Giulia Grillo who had focused on the former general to give a change to the return programs in progress since 2009. The choice was confirmed on 19 July 2019, and again three days ago by the minister Hope, with the Calabria decree “bis” which assigns resources and powers to deal with a red of 160 million which increasingly impacts on the ability to respond to the ongoing health emergency.
The height of the dates makes the warmth with which politics is greeting defenestration surreal. Matteo Salvini, for example, now points the finger at the current government to the motto: “Commissioner as scandalous as whoever appointed him”. But to name him was the yellow-green government, of which Salvini – perhaps distracted – was a part. Indeed, taking up the act (download) it was also visited by the then Minister for Regional Affairs who was the Northern League Erika Stefani. The appointment is in fact by the Mef, in consultation with Salute and after consulting the Ministry of Regional Affairs.

The government is increasingly confused and the citizens are paying. He appoints a “commissioner” for Calabria and removes him after a few hours … The scandalous inadequacy of #Cotticelli demonstrates the scandalous inadequacy of the entire government. pic.twitter.com/ue12MUR87Z

– Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) November 7, 2020

Closed the parenthesis on reactions, it should also be noted that theincompetence revealed in the Rai3 report was somewhat unsuspected. Not so much or only for the CV of the Carabinieri general, who was also leader of the Nas in health care and ended his career as president of the Central Council of Military Representation (Co.Ce.R). To resume the declarations of the first appointment, it is evident how much the sacrosanct aspect of the “legalitarian response” to the mismanagement reflected in the red accounts of the Calabrian ats was accentuated. Grillo, who was not exposed at the time, had welcomed the choice at the time in terms of “guarantee figure for legality, transparency e competence“. The order of the words was perhaps not random.

The need to catapult carabinieri and financiers into health care was far from far-fetched. If Cotticelli leaves the scene today with the stigma of incompetence, his predecessors did so with worse accusations. Massimo Scura e Andrea Urbani, former member of the general directorate of health planning of the Ministry of Health – ended up under investigation in an investigation by the public prosecutor of Catanzaro for the emoluments paid for nine and undue not due, decreed by the commissioner for the repayment plan, to managers doctors who should not have received additional wages. The disbursement of the indemnities was interrupted at the end of last year, by the commissioner ad acta in office, General Saverio Cotticelli himself. But honesty alone, as the epilogue of the story shows, is not enough.

It had emerged in Calabria since the beginning of the emergency. When the head of the Civil Protection had to resign under the eyes of a camera Domenico Pallaria, who during an episode of Report at the end of March had admitted: “Pulmonary ventilators? I don’t even know what they are ”.

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