Former collaborator exonerates Santanchè, 'I decided on Cig'

Daniela Santanchè can rely on the words put on record today before the judge by a former Visibilia group collaborator, the same ones reported in a previous interrogation, to try to avoid being sent to trial on charges of aggravated fraud against the Inps. "Decisions on payments to employees, including the layoff fund chapter, I managed them, I took care of the Cig," explained, in essence, Paolo Giuseppe Concordia, a former external collaborator 'with personnel management functions' of Visibilia Editore and Visibilia Concessionaria, two companies of the publishing group founded by the Minister of Tourism, who in 2022 relinquished the posts.

Concordia, who is accused together with the FdI senator, the latter's companion Dimitri Kunz, and the two companies (Visibilia Editore, which had ended up in receivership, has already asked for a plea bargain) decided, in fact, to make the examination and answer questions before the gup Tiziana Gueli and the prosecutors Marina Gravina and Luigi Luzi. Already after the closing of the investigation, in the face-to-face meeting with the prosecutors, he had taken responsibility for the layoffs during the Covid period.

According to the prosecution, the two companies would have 'unduly' requested and obtained the Cig in derogation, 'to support companies affected by the effects' of the pandemic, for 13 employees and for over EUR 126,000, the amount of the alleged fraud, between May 2020 and February 2022. And even Santanchè, at the time chairman of Visibilia Editore's board of directors and sole director of Concessionaria, and Kunz, a former councillor and former managing director of Editore, according to the prosecutors, were 'aware' of the alleged fraud and of the fact that those 13 people were actually working, even though they were formally in Cig. And this, according to the investigations, results from emails in the files and statements by the employees themselves.Concordia, defended by lawyer Marcello Elia, had already claimed that as an external consultant he was in charge of managing personnel payments and had also dealt with the Cig issue.

In that pandemic period, he further explained, the situation was not at all easy and there was also regulatory confusion about what could and could not be done and between smart working and redundancy funds. Today he reiterated that he had taken the 'decisions' and that, even though the board had voted on the Cig, the directors had been informed 'in a general way'. A version that 'exonerates', as pointed out by defence sources, the minister from any possible responsibility and that the defendant reiterated in little more than half an hour before the judge, who will have to decide whether or not to indict him.

The time, however, is getting longer. After rejecting two defence exceptions, including that of the Santanchè defence, which was still asking for the charge to be reclassified as the less weighty "undue receipt to the detriment of the State of public funds", and after the interrogation of Concordia, the gup set 9 July as the date for the hearing in which the prosecutors will intervene to reiterate the request for trial. Then, another date will be set at least for the defence arguments. And at that hearing, as announced by lawyers Salvatore Pino and Nicolò Pelanda, the minister could appear before the gup to answer questions and have her say for the first time in one of the 'Visibilia package' proceedings. It is possible, in this context, that the preliminary hearing will end with a decision after the summer break. In the meantime, the trial for false accounting, in which the MEP is a defendant with 16 others, has also begun with some delays, after the judges instructed the prosecutors to clarify the charges. It will return to the courtroom in that case on 10 June.