INDUSTRIAL CONVERSIONS
The appeal of Made in China to the commissioner structure also emerges from another paradoxical story, which again features an Italian company, Fatrotec Spa. The group, which at the time was involved in electronics and telecommunications, made itself available to the commissioner structure for the production of medical devices in the early phase of the emergency. It developed a complete ventilation system, with vital parameter detection, tailored for Covid patients and at the end of March participated in an Invitalia tender worth 650,000 euros for the production of this type of ventilators.
Despite the moment of extreme emergency, Invitalia, according to the company, took 25 days for the preliminary evaluation phase. Meanwhile, given the contingency, the company made an investment of 800,000 euros to start production. The ventilators could have been made in two months, and within six months they would have obtained all the certifications required by the Invitalia tender, on which, moreover, European regulations allowed a derogation in case of a health emergency. Everything was reported by the company via certified email, but no order ever came from the commissioner structure.
In October 2020, in the midst of the second wave of Covid, the company “was able to produce 40 systems a day, which included multi-parameter ventilators and telecommunications systems, as also confirmed by Invitalia.” “We therefore had a significant production capacity to meet all the needs of that moment,” said the group president Francesco Peluso in the Covid Inquiry Commission. Yet, no order came from the Arcuri commissioner structure, despite the investment providing that the products had to be made available to the Commissioner.
The ventilators produced by Fatrotec, moreover, would have had a cost similar to the approximately 500 purchased by Arcuri in the first phase of the emergency and which proved inadequate for Covid patients. A subsequent analysis showed that they were “statistically less performing” and delivered “a lower expiratory tidal volume than other machines and the set parameters.”
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THE BAFFINO ASSOCIATION “Without the CE mark and not compliant with the safety requirements provided by current regulations” were also the 140 Made in China ventilators imported in March 2020 thanks to the good offices of Massimo D’Alema. The former Prime Minister at the time was honorary president of Silk Road Global Information LTD, a company linked to the Silk Road Cities Alliance, a think tank of the Beijing government created to support the geopolitical Silk Road project. According to an investigation by La Verità, former ministers and officials of the Beijing government were also part of Silk Road Global Information LTD. The name of Massimo Continues the publication of the confidential dossier on the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy. In previous episodes, we reconstructed the country’s unpreparedness, the lockdown decided after a meeting never minuted, and the appointment of Domenico Arcuri to lead a structure endowed with billions and extraordinary powers, with severely limited controls. We then reviewed the waste of the commissioner management: devices purchased at higher prices, inadequate respirators, expensive syringes, Primule and wheeled desks never used.
Up to the Jc Electronics case, which cost the State 100 million euros for a certification not submitted, and the entrepreneur’s testimony about a consultancy request equal to 10% of the supplies.
D’Alema appears in the emails of the negotiations for the purchase of devices, later revealed to be without certifications. He himself claimed a role in the mediation in an interview with Corriere della Sera: “At the most dramatic moment of the pandemic, by virtue of my good international relations with the Chinese, I was asked to help recover ventilators. The problem was that the Italian state could pay on delivery while the Chinese asked to be paid at the time of the order.
An international association, of which I am a member, took charge of buying these ventilators on behalf of the Italian government, effectively advancing the money.”
The purchase was signed on March 13, 2020, by the head of Civil Protection, Borrelli, but Arcuri was also involved in the matter, as CEO of Invitalia, who shortly thereafter would assume the role of extraordinary commissioner. Silvia Fabrizi, an Invitalia employee indicated by Arcuri to Benotti in a series of messages as the person who would contact him for the brokerage on the maxi order of 1.25 billion euros of Chinese masks, is also copied on the Chinese company’s email.
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DOMESTIC PRODUCTION
Returning to Italian companies, there were several that in the first phase of the pandemic made their production capacity available to put protective devices desperately needed on the national market. But not all, as in the case of Fatrotec, despite having certifications and technical capabilities, were actually contacted by the commissioner structure to order the products. “In terms of production capacity, only the companies in our Committee were able to produce about 60 million masks per month,” Peluso said during his testimonial examination in the Covid Inquiry Commission. In July 2020, the Conte government chose to entrust most of the national mask production to Fca Italy. An order worth 170 million euros for 2 billion masks, 27 million per day. The commissioner structure took charge of purchasing the machinery to convert production, for about 56 million euros in total, and also of purchasing meltblown from BYD Europe B.V., for about 41 million euros in total. Civil Protection was tasked with distribution throughout the national territory, and schools were among the recipients. But already in October controversies began. For teachers and parents, the masks produced by Fca Italy were unusable: elastic in the shape of a “garter,” they were difficult to wear and emitted a bad odor. It ended that in the summer of 2021 the Ministry of Health was forced to request the withdrawal of several batches produced at the Mirafiori plant between August and December 2020. According to an investigation by Striscia la Notizia, the withdrawn masks would have been 10% of the total produced by Fca. Moral: on the one hand, there were companies that advanced their own money to convert their production lines to cope with the emergency and then did not receive orders from the commissioner structure; for John Elkann’s giant, the State will also spend 296,000 euros to dismantle at its expense the 25 production lines that the Commissioner gave to the group free of charge. The umpteenth paradox of the Conte-Arcuri management.
(Continued/8).
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