Italian Minister Pecoraro Scanio blocks a project of cooperation for the clean up of Nairobi Dandora Dumping Site.

A magistrate of the Rome Tribunal is investigating allegations about bribes paid for project of environmental cooperation with Kenya in order to clean up the Dandora dumping site.

Some weeks ago the Minister of Environment (MoE) of the Italian government after having stopped the project has opened an internal investigation to check on the project itself : I would like to understand how things went, there are too many black holes, as things are, it may end up before a Court.

As a matter of fact it did ended up before a Magistrate Maria Cordova who has asked the Carabinieri of the Nucleo Operativo Ecologico (NOE) to investigate on the Dandora Dumping site, a hellish site of Nairobi. In Dandora more than half million people live around the dumpsite and thousands try to make a living on the scraps and rubbish dumped there. Nairobi has no organized recycling rubbish service: but it is done by the struggle for survival of the people. They collect all the rubbish (paper, glass, plastic, food). Around Dandora, Korogocho has been expanding in the last thirty years more and more: Korogocho is the worst of the two hundred shanty towns that dot the Kenyan capital. It is in Korogocho, that in Kikuyu language means chaos-confusion that the most desperate of people find refuge, try to survive, to make a living out of the rubbish that surround them. On a surface of 1kmq one hundred twenty thousand people live, life expectancy is lower than 40 years. They are killed, poisoned, eaten up by the fumes, gases, poisons produced by the rubbish dumped there.

Fr. Alex Zanotelli who lived here for 12 years and now Fr. Daniele Moschetti, Comboni missionaries, have spoken loudly about the tragedy of Dandora and Korogocho. Fr. Daniel has been fighting for the closure of the dumping site for a long time as well as for its relocation. Meanwhile the social networks of the area have become clearer.

There is a social network to be taken into account; the criminal gangs that racket people who make a living and try to survive. They have to pay a pizzo to the gangs.

On November 2006 the Italian Minister of Environemnt Mr. Pegoraro Scanio and the Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs and for Africa and Cooperation, Mrs Patrizia Sentinelli paid a visit to Kenya and they promised to the Comboni missionaries to find out a solution to the issue in collaboration with the Kenyan government: The dumping site will be closed down. Therefore 700 thousand Euros were allocated for a feasibility study about the closure, removal and collection of Nairobi rubbish.

The Kenyan government wrote a concept paper charging Euroafrica to carry out the feasibility study. It was sent to the Italian government that approved it on May 17, 2007. It seems that this document has not been written by the Kenyan Ministry but by the Italian company Doralco, partner of Euroafrica. The document has been materially written by Federica Fricano of the Italian Minister of Environment. Euroafrica is located in Naples, hometown of Tiziana Perroni while a front office is in Roma, whose address is the house of Bruno Calzia. The two are husband and wife. Their society with a capital asset of ten thousand Euros has not the technical skills to carry out the operations they are supposed to do in Dandora. The only employee is Tiziana Perroni.

In a letter to the Italian MoE on July 18, Tiziana Perroni wrote: Eurafrica Management and Consulting was set up in 2002 on the initiative of Vittorio Travaglini and Bruno Calzia in partnership with the De Nadai Group, an Italian corporation working in many African, Middle east, Arabic Peninsula, Asian countries as well as in North and South America. The De Nadai Group is a well known and respected corporation. It started its operations in Erirea giving a substantial contribution to the development of the italian colony. Thanks to the creativity of its management and workforce, the Group exported agricultural food stuff in the Middle East. Interviewing however Mrs. De Nadai she explains: I have heard of this story but it does not have at all our support. Is it true that Eurafica in its operations takes advantage of the De Nadai Group network? As it stand written in the letter submitted to the MoE by Eurafrica? The reply is Absolutely no! They have made use for sometimes of the Florence office. There it is the home office of Evergreen a partner of Doralco, the society on whose computer hard disk has been written the concept paper. Travaglini is not yet the owner of Eurafrica Italia but he does own Eurafica Kenya together with Bruno Calzia; General Manager of Eurafrica Kenya is Renzo Bernardi, the frontman of Beretta, of Brithish Aerospace, of the French Sagem, of Italian Oto Melara, all of them weapons making companies.

It is true that Calzia was born and grew up in Somalia, since May 2006 is an economic consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture; Emma Bonino has appointed him in the executive board of the ICE. The letter lists some positive aspects about Eurafrica and it adds :?Because of what has been previously pointed out, taking into account its trustsfulness and operative capacities of Eurafrica, the society has been chosen by the Kenyan Ministry of Local Government as project leader. The Kenyan Minister of Local Government is Musikary Kombo who claims to have no knowledge at all about the entire issue. The P.S. of the ministry, Mr. Solomon Boit, while admitting that the August 15 meeting did took place together with a director of the Ministry of Environment of Italy, Mr. Clini and denies that Eurafica has been charged to carry out the issue. About the concept paper Boit is elusive. Asked if he knew the society before August 15, he said that he came to know them only on that occasion and there was with them someone who was known. Who? I don't know. Boit and Kombo pretend not to know that someone known is no less than Renzo Bernardi, the weapon merchant who has been working in Kenya for thirty years and has double passaport. Bernardi - points out Mawlimu Mati, head of a Kenyan NGO engaged in fighting corruption- was member of a group supporting Kombo in his bid to the Kenyan presidency. He was on that list for a short time and afterwards his named was deleted. Solomom Boit is quoted in the Eurafrica letter :References concerning the activities of Eurafrica and its partners may be asked to Mr. Boit. Eurafrica does admit not to have the know-how to deal with the Dandora dumping site. It names two other companies, the British Atkins and the Howard Humphrey of Nairobi in its position paper to the Italian Ministry. Why not to involve these companies since the beginning? - asks Fr. Moschetti. Why do involve a third partner that needs to be paid? Money needs to be put at the service of the people living here. It is very sad to speculate on people lives. The missionary explains how the closure of the dumping site has not only technical consequences but above all social ones: ?There is a social network to take into account; people here make a living and the dumping site affects not only Korogocho but other shanty towns dwellers as well. There is a project, elaborated by an Italian society, that foresees, in the relocation process, the involvement of the local population. It has been worked out by Jacorossi, a leading company in this field. It is a market oriented project, profit is clearly sought. Closing down the dumping site and the management of the new site, according to Jacorossi, was supposed to be done in partnership with Nairobi Municipality in order to manage rubbish collection carried out with the participation of all the people already involed in the business. Somebody says: Jacorossi has already elaborated a project: why does prepare another one? Put the money on peoples's needs!? How much the feasibility study has costed? Not more than two hundred thousand Euro - says Carlo Van Vageningen of Jacorossi based in Nairobi. This joint venture was stopped in 2004 with accusations of corruptions done by the Jacorossi with former minister Karisa Maitha and former city major Joe Akech.

Why then the Italian MoE was ready to give out 721.633 Euro to Eurafrica, money stopped by the Minister Pecoraro Scanio has no doubt: I have asked for information about Eurafrica at our embassy in Nairobi but they did not give me anything therefore I stopped everything. However I am morally bound to go on to help closing the dumping site. I have asked to Apat of our Italian Ministry to do the job free of charge.As a matter of fact behind the money there is the collection and management of Nairobi rubbish: A business worth 30 $ million. It is the money Eurafrica is after. says Fr. Daniel Moschetti. This remark has prompted the magistrate to investigate as well as the Minister who came to know of the 15th August meeting by chance: ?We are well known in Kenya- points out Bruno Calzia-it is because of this we have been chosen. However Minister Kombo maintains that he does not know neither Eurafrica nor Calzia. As well Boit whose name Eurafrica puts as reference. To the question: Why should ask Euroafrica to do the job when the latter will give the feasibility study to Atkins? Should not save money dealing directly with Eurafrica?? The answer is elusive: The Kenyan government likes to work with us, they esteem us very much. It is significant to point out that civil society organizations fighting corruption put Kenya high in the list of the corrupted countries. Moreover Eurafrica is not known at all by the Italian Embassy of Nairobi. Corrado Clini, a director of the Italian Ministry of Environment, in a letter to the Corriere della Sera, the major newspaper in Italy, says that he believes that Eurafrica is a sound consultancy and logistic society: It has been working with us in Bosnia and I did not have any problem. He does confirm that it has been chosen by the African government. What about the Jacorossi project? I have asked to the Italian Embassy: there is no record of it. However from Nairobi Carlo Van Vageningen replies showing a receipt of the project given to our Embassy. The study is missed. And this disappearance was about to cost already 700 hundred thousand Euro.

Massimo A. Alberizzi

translated by Enrico Gonzales

\n malberizzi@corriere.it