guardian.co.uk,
Tom Kington in Rome, Wednesday 22 February 2012
Mario
Monti's "grey" government of technocrats and professors in Italy may
not be so dull after all. Thanks to a transparency drive which compelled
ministers to list income and assets online, Italians have discovered to their
surprise that the cabinet includes millionaires and fans of Harley-Davidson and
Vespa.
After
promising to cut tax evasion and endemic fraud, Monti set an honest example by
going public with his cabinet's wealth. The results were so intriguing the
government's website crashed due to intense traffic when they were published.
Top earner
is justice minister Paola Severino, a lawyer, who pocketed €7m (£4.5m) last
year.
"I am
proud of making money legally and paying my taxes to the last euro," said
the minister, who handed over €4m in tax in 2011. This year her ministerial
salary stands at €195,000.
Second
richest is Corrado Passera, minister for economic development and the former
head of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo, who earned €3.5m before joining the
government.
Apart from
the odd Jaguar, motor yacht and the Harley-Davidson owned by 65-year-old
foreign minister Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, ministers favour sensible Japanese
and Italian cars.
But while
one vice minister gets around on a Vespa and environment minister Corrado Clini
nips around in a Fiat 500.
Ministers
appear to have splashed instead on real estate, including properties in New
York, Brussels, Paris and a ski resort in the Dolomites. Monti is the proud
owner of 16 properties, although Piero Giarda, keen to show he is no tycoon,
published photos of stone huts he owns in the Alps.
"I had
a look at the sites of other G7 leaders and struggled to find anything
comparable to our initiative," said Monti.
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