Roundup: Italian press reports costly delays in Expo Milano 2015 construction works

Media reports in Italy have suggested it will cost the country over 1 million euros (about 1.08 million U.S. dollars) to camouflage unfinished works at Expo Milano 2015, the upcoming world exposition here.

Some 40 days from the opening of Expo Milano 2015, which will run from May 1 to Oct. 31, construction work is frenetic at the one-million-square-meter exposition site in the northwestern part of the northern Italian city.

Expo officials have said that around 90 percent of main structures are complete and thousands of people are working around the clock at the site to put right the delays registered in the past years and open the event with "only very few works incomplete."

However, recent media reports have highlighted that not only will numerous projects not be finished, including some parts of pavilions and infrastructure projected to ease access to the site, Expo organizers are hurrying to conceal the incomplete structures.

In a recent analysis published by Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, journalist and author Gianni Barbacetto flagged a tender issued by the Expo organizers and published on the Expo's website earlier this month for the "installation of camouflage panels" worth more than 1 million euros.

"The tender specifies that interventions will have to be carried out in numerous points of the site 'as necessary.' The meaning is clear: there will be various unfinished works to hide," he told Xinhua.

Barbacetto still believed Expo would be successful in the end, because millions of visitors would come to Milan especially attracted by the countless events of Expo in citta (Expo in the city), a project created to involve the entire city in Expo Milano 2015 for first time in world expositions' history.

"But we have to be aware that some works will remain unfinished, while some others will be completed during the six-month event," Barbacetto went on saying.

"For example, some pavilions may be completed externally but be unfinished inside. Our reporters have entered the site in the past days and provided documentary evidence that works, including main structures, are well behind the timetable," he stressed.

Italy won the right to host Expo 2015 in 2008. So what is the reason for the last minute dash to complete construction immediately before the Expo's kicking off?

"Local political fights have prevented from lifting a finger during the first three years," Barbacetto recalled. The lack of expertise of various people working at the expo organizer machine as a result of widespread lack of meritocracy in Italy has also contributed to a slowdown in construction, he added.

But above all, Barbacetto told Xinhua, serious corruption scandals have hit Expo Milano 2015. Several officials and businessmen connected to the Expo construction project have been arrested or investigated. The umpteenth case broke out earlier this week and uncovered a graft system which led to the resignation of Infrastructure Minister Maurizio Lupi on Friday. The world exposition allegedly was among the targeted public works.

There is also concern that the allegedly corrupt contracts could involve the Italian pavilion's Palazzo Italia (Italian palace) which is one of the focal points of the world exposition and is set to remain after the event as a center of technological innovation.

"Will Palazzo Italia manage to be finished in time?" la Repubblica newspaper speculated. Expo officials are sure that this will happen, the newspaper noted. "Otherwise, there will be the camouflage panels for which Expo has issued a tender," it concluded ironically.

No camouflage, however, will be enough to remedy the incompleteness of the many infrastructural works that will be left behind or unfinished by May 1, Marco Ponti, a senior professor in transport economics at Milan Polytechnic University and former adviser at the World Bank, said.

"Works worth around 9 billion euros had been projected in Milan and surrounding territories to ease traffic flow during the expo. But looking at the result, very few works have been completed, most of which are not even useful to reach the Expo site," he explained to Xinhua.

Ponti cited the example of new subway lines and arteries initially planned to open before Expo Milano 2015. "The Line 5 will be partially ready by the Expo opening. The Line 4 will not be ready, while the Line 6 has been postponed to future years," he said. Ring roads and highways connecting Milan to surrounding areas will also be only partially completed, he added.

"The Italian state has invested a lot of money and this is not the expected result. I believe it would be better on the occasion of big events to especially rely on private sponsors and investors," Ponti argued. Endit