(Jamma) “If the prospects of the Casino really are to grow in revenues constantly by 2,4-3,1 per cent a year between now and 2043, to the point of envisaging the hiring of another 30 employees in 2017, in addition to the current 574 – as stated in the Kpmg report based on data provided by the gambling house itself – why, then, should we sell? One of two things: either they are concrete data and then it is not clear why to hand over the management, or they are not and then the financial consistency that justifies the operation falls”.
The question starts from the ranks of the PDL (Zuin and Locatelli), is raised by the Brothers of Italy (Costalonga, who asks for the resignation of the top management of the casino), the 5stelle Placella nods, consolidates in the director of the mixed Funari group, is formulated even equal by the councilor pd Molina and revives the first, long (three hours) commission on the council resolution for the thirty-year privatization of the management of the Venice casino. In the hands of the municipal councilors, for the first time also the synthesis of the analysis on the value of the Casino spa that the Municipality has entrusted to the advisor. Kpmg - on the basis of the economic and financial plan prepared by the client - has drawn up an attractive proposal for the sale of the management of the gambling house: a minimum guaranteed amount of 140 million to be collected by 2013, plus 44,8 million to cover the balance sheet of the Casino Spa, 10% on receipts (for no less than 10 million a year) from the third year and up to the 30th, an extra 1% starting from 2020 on receipts exceeding 140 million. Mayor Orsoni – who on Wednesday obtained the support of the majority group leaders for the operation – goes straight ahead with conviction in the face of objections that also come from the UDC Venturini.
«The subject is widely known to the Council», Orsoni said, «the framework of gambling has radically changed in the last 3 years and from the monopoly of 4 cities it has moved on to a substantial liberalisation. The old local management no longer holds up, due to the very high costs compared to arcades and online games. The solution can only be to put our gambling house online with a wider international system, to beat such intense competition and maintain an attractive resource for tourism, an important economy of the city". Orsoni provides the overall data: 184 million euros a year would be added to the maxi rent of 6,8 million and the percentages on receipts for the rental of Ca' Noghera and Ca' Vendramin Calergi. Then the savings: 8 million euros a year from Siae which today the Municipality subtracts from the share that the casino pays it and just under 600 thousand euros a year in concession fees.
“It's not true that we are selling off”, replied the mayor, “the total of the operation is almost 900 million. We get important figures for the budget. We want to give the gambling house a future and we want to work to ensure resources to manage the city's services, which this operation can help guarantee in a decisive way. We have made enormous efforts to manage a budget in difficult times that was not the most virtuous and which today is very virtuous, without compressing social services, the pride of the city". So far the picture. The mayor would like to close by mid-September, but the president of the Baratello commission has already accepted the requests of the opposition: to hear the analysts of Kpmg, the top management of the Casino on the growth data envisaged since the second half of 2013 in the face of three black years, the prefect on the authorizations of the Ministry of the Interior, auditors. As for the prescriptions of the ministry to give effect to the go-ahead, Orsoni reiterated – amid protests from the opposition and from Molina himself – that «the prescriptions were substantially current».
