Gat the there were 17 days left to celebrate a year as super commissioner. But, by now, Domenico Arcuri had understood that he would not have reached that goal. To those who asked him for a prediction, on Draghi’s intentions, he cited the novel by Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a death foretold. After leaving Palazzo Chigi, stripped of his office, he limited himself to an institutional note: «I am grateful to those who gave me the opportunity to deal with the greatest emergency that recent history can remember. I am honored to have been able to serve my country in such a dramatic season ». It was March 17, 2020 when Giuseppe Conte signed the decree to entrust him with “the implementation and coordination of the measures necessary for the containment and contrast of the epidemiological emergency COVID-19”. As the months went by, this meant dealing with practically all the most delicate and urgent issues related to the pandemic. Starting with the procurement of masks, gloves and protective devices on the market, then the equipment for intensive care, single-seat and wheeled benches for schools. And again the failed bet of the Immuni app, up to the massive game of vaccines: contracts with pharmaceutical companies, supply logistics, controversy over syringes, organization of the campaign in the area, with primrose-shaped pavilions, withered quickly. A challenging year, in short, even for a public manager with a hair on his stomach, for 13 years at the helm of Invitalia, impervious to repeated changes of government. When Conte called him, he offered him (yes, to him) full powers, also in derogation of the rules, as provided for by the Cura Italia decree: «All documents are removed from the control of the Court of Auditors. For the same acts, the accounting and administrative responsibility is limited only to the cases in which the fraud has been ascertained “.
The race for masks
A “shield” with which Arcuri faced the first challenge, in full lockdown: to buy millions of masks from anyone who could sell them, waiting to start a national production. He opened a thousand channels, dozens of orders, unblocked customs clearance, simplified the validation criteria, and finally got the surgical masks, and then the Ffp2 ones, complete with a tug-of-war with the pharmacists. The mask at the political price of 50 cents was the first result that Arcuri was able to boast. But the price paid by him, to obtain the masks, made him end up under investigation: the prosecutor of Rome investigates, in particular, the credit lines, for a total value of 1.25 billion euros, made in favor of three Chinese consortia for the acquisition of over 800 million masks. Buy at excessive prices compared to market values, with excellent deals for the brokers who had contacted the commissioner structure. Arcuri has been investigated, but the magistrates have already asked for his dismissal and he declares himself an “injured party” in this affair, which certainly did not help him to be reconfirmed. Over the months, the Commissioner signed dozens of ordinances and managed everything: the purchase of lung respirators, the monitoring of beds, the millions of tampons (and related reagents) made available to the Regions.
From Immune to wheeled benches
It has unsuccessfully focused on the Immuni app, which was to be used to track infections, but it was downloaded and activated only by a minority of Italians: 10 million people, which allowed to discover just 12,645 cases of positivity. Then, in the summer, he launched into the discussed purchase of single-seater and innovative benches, that is, with wheels. It was not his idea, but this did not spare him the criticism, also because for several weeks there was mystery both about the winning companies of the tender and about the contracts. In the end, two and a half million pieces bought, at a cost of over 300 million euros (270 euros for each innovative counter), delivered in October, just before schools returned to distance learning due to the second wave of the virus. Hardly anyone has used them yet, but if nothing else, they will remain in the institutions once the pandemic is over. We quickly forgot them, because since the autumn we have focused on one goal: vaccines.
Vaccines and primroses
It is the news of recent months: the contracts signed by the European Commission on which Arcuri, in private, did not hide his doubts, underlining «the mistakes of von der Leyen». And again the agreements on supplies with pharmaceutical companies, promptly disregarded in the impotence of the Commissioner. In December we were promised 28 million doses in the first quarter, there is a month left and it will be fine if half of it arrives. The controversy over vaccine deliveries has been paired with those over the purchase of precision syringes: 157 million luer locks, paid up to six times more than normal, because it was thought they were needed to extract 6 doses instead of 5 from each vial of Pfizer serum. Then it turned out that this is not the case. The last climb, for Arcuri, was the vaccination plan, the organization of the campaign on the territory: the difficulty in extricating between the various regional administrations, the uncertainties about the places for mass administration. The Commissioner understood the hint by listening to Draghi in his speech in Parliament, when the premier said that vaccinations should be done using existing structures, without wasting time creating new ones. A dry rejection of the primrose-shaped pavilions. They had to be 1200, then downsized to 21, they would have cost over 400 thousand euros each. Faded quickly, like the power of Arcuri. In recent times, looking at this stammering vaccination campaign, he let himself go to a suggestive prediction: “You will see that in the end the Russian Sputnik will save us.” Let’s write it down.
–
