The former mayor of Alghero, Mario Conoci, intervenes with an open letter on the future of Secal, the collection company of the Municipality. «The council must publicly state what it intends to do with the subsidiary».

«There are increasingly frequent public interventions, concerned, by political forces and free citizens on the future of Secal, the collection company of the Municipality of Alghero, conceived and desired to humanize and balance the relationship between citizens-taxpayers and the administration.

During my mandate, the relaunch of Secal has been a central objective, pursued with determination to ensure the stability of the company and the quality of the service provided to the community.

When we took office, the company was close to collapse. With long and hard work, we brought Secal back to financial solidity, restored the balance sheets and started a process of administrative strengthening. A contribution was made by the director Francesco Masala, the director appointed by the administration that preceded us and whom I supported without hesitation. It still hurts to think that such an incredible professional, a man, is no longer with us. We supported him without hesitation precisely because of his extraordinary and rare qualities of professionalism, dedication, kindness and humanity. Francesco Masala, together with the previous director, the current board of directors, the control bodies and the Secal employees, was a pillar of the relaunch. My unconditional thanks to all of them.

I wrote “not without difficulty” because today it is evident that there were resistances, often well hidden, for this to happen. While the representatives elected by the citizens were committed to rehabilitating Secal, while my administration formally expressed and in multiple acts the will to relaunch the subsidiary, there were those who secretly cultivated the idea of canceling it.

Thus the stability built with so much effort was called into question in March 2024, strangely when I issued the necessary decree for the rotation of managerial positions, provided for by the regulations and suggested by the anti-corruption authority, which also concerned the financial sector. It was from those offices that a proposal for a resolution for the council arrived, the subject of which read “In-house company Secal Srl, entirely owned by the municipality of Alghero: dissolution of the company and liquidation - Proposal to the City Council.”

This proposal, never agreed with me or other political representatives, was obviously not taken into consideration. Today it seems that the same proposal has been re-proposed by the same manager, who in the meantime - and apparently in defiance of anti-corruption regulations - has been reinstated in his previous roles.

That proposal appeared, at the time, as an attempt by a manager to express a personal frustration with a necessary act such as the rotation of managerial positions. In light of what is happening today, it was actually a surprising attempt by a manager to replace the democratically elected representatives of citizens, reversing their choices.

Since the end of my administration, the financial sector, they tell me, has failed to pay Secal the amount required by the contract with the Company. Almost 300 thousand euros of debt of the municipality towards Secal. Therefore, the concerns that are being raised from various quarters about the future of Secal appear well-founded, both for its operations and, above all, for the workers who work there.
It is important to point out that bringing Secal's activities back into the municipal structure is, in fact, unfeasible. The only alternative would be a leap in the dark, with the assignment of the service to an external operator, as happened with the assignment of some functions to Step, which happened, by chance, I think, under the same management.

The Mayor, the Councilor delegate and also the entire majority - assuming they were informed of the details of the affair - should publicly clarify what their will is. If it is their intention to suppress Secal, send all the employees home, nullify years of work. Let them publicly state what their political position is. They certainly cannot pretend nothing is happening. Let them not bring Secal to closure hoping to then, after having remained helpless, paint an inevitable scenario, caused by unforeseen and unpredictable events.

There is nothing unexpected or unpredictable in this affair. The facts tell of a clear bureaucratic will, embodied by the manager of the financial sector, to suppress Secal. Let us clarify things immediately and publicly, out of respect for the workers, the company, and the elected administrators, who have the task of choosing, not of passively submitting to choices made in an opaque manner by someone else".


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