2026-11-09
Expertise costs too much. We're already paying for incompetence.
Expertise costs too much. We're already paying for incompetence.
From millionaire hackers to the neutrino tunnel, from Poggiolini's hidden fortune to bribes over public contracts: a look at what the state demands of taxpayers, and what it should demand of those making the decisions.
Opinion 9 November 2026
On 3 November, Italy's Minister for Public Administration, Paolo Zangrillo, described hackers as young people aged 18 to 25, with tattoos and earrings, claiming that even the least successful among them earn a million euros a year. The public-sector pay cap of around €311,000, he added, prevents the state from hiring them.[^zangrillo]
The report by Cybersecurity Italia also uses the term “criminal hacker”, which is precisely where a distinction is needed. The proceeds of cybercrime are no benchmark for the cost of hiring security professionals. In its 9 November article on the problem, Il Post reports gross annual salaries of €40,000–€50,000, with more experienced professionals starting at around €65,000. Pay varies by role, experience and market; a million euros a year does not describe an ordinary specialist's salary.[^post]
The gap is large enough to warrant a question: do the people preparing public policy decisions check the figures before using them?
Zangrillo is also a senator. The Senate lists standard remuneration for that office at €10,385.31 gross per month, or approximately €124,624 over twelve months, with subsistence allowances and expense reimbursements paid separately. This is the standard pay attached to the office, rather than a reconstruction of his individual payslips.[^senato]
Paying people well for public responsibilities is reasonable. The same seriousness should apply to how those responsibilities are exercised: knowing what they are talking about, choosing capable staff and correcting mistakes. The contrast becomes irritating when technical expertise is portrayed as unaffordable while institutional carelessness continues to have a place in the budget.
The neutrino tunnel and the €156,000 communications job
On 23 September 2011, an Education Ministry press release attributed to Mariastella Gelmini referred to a “tunnel between CERN and the Gran Sasso laboratories” and an estimated Italian contribution of €45 million towards its construction.[^gelmini]
That tunnel did not exist. CERN describes a neutrino beam travelling through roughly 732 kilometres of rock; the facility's decay tunnel was one kilometre long. These are two very different things.[^cern]
The most directly documented pay figure concerns Massimo Zennaro, then the ministry's head of communications and the minister's spokesperson. A Ministry of Education, Universities and Research pay schedule published in September 2011 listed €156,161.75 gross per year for his senior management post. On 29 September, he stepped down as spokesperson while retaining his position as director-general.[^zennaro-paga][^zennaro-dimissioni]
Gelmini was also a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Standard parliamentary pay in 2011 was €11,283.28 gross per month, subject to the reductions applicable to members with other employment. This figure covers the parliamentary role alone; it does not establish her total remuneration as both minister and MP.[^camera]
This episode does not establish that €45 million was spent digging an imaginary tunnel: that amount appeared in the erroneous press release. The documented failure is already serious enough: an official statement from the ministry responsible for scientific research described infrastructure that did not exist.
A check with the people running the experiment could have prevented the fiasco. At that level of responsibility and pay, checking material before publication should be part of the ordinary job.
Poggiolini: when the money reached the upholstery
The case of Duilio Poggiolini, director-general of the Health Ministry's pharmaceutical service, belongs to the history of proven corruption.
The famous story of the “sofa full of gold bars” needs a clarification. The seized fortune did include gold bars and valuables; contemporary reports describe government bond certificates worth around ten billion lire hidden inside an ottoman. The reality was striking enough without embellishment.[^poggiolini-pouf][^poggiolini-tesoro]
Italy's Official Gazette records a sentence of four years and four months, which became final in 2003, and an order to pay €5,164,569 in damages to the public administration, linked to unjustified increases in pharmaceutical spending.[^poggiolini-condanna]
It has not been possible to verify a reliable figure for his salary at the time. Seized assets, total income and bribes are different measures; presenting any of them as pay would make the comparison misleading.
Poggiolini shows why the cost of bad administration extends beyond the payroll. A senior official can influence financial decisions worth vastly more than their own salary. When that power serves private interests, taxpayers fund both the machinery meant to exercise oversight and the consequences of its betrayal.
A blunder can reveal carelessness; corruption can be organised with considerable skill. Public administration needs to prevent both.
Zampini: the light bulbs and the 6.8 billion lire in bribes
The case of Adriano Zampini, a businessman and intermediary from Verona, dates back to the Turin scandal of 1983, almost a decade before the Mani Pulite, or “Clean Hands”, investigations. Zampini has said that he paid politicians a total of 6.8 billion lire in bribes.[^zampini-contesto]
In an interview by Stefano Lorenzetto published in L'Arena in 2023, the newspaper recalls his confessions and a sentence of one year and three months. Zampini also describes trips on Concorde and a dinner in Helsinki where the guests ended up throwing caviar at one another.[^zampini-intervista]
The light bulbs appear in the same account. Among the deals he said he lost because of the scandal was a contract to supply bulbs for every traffic light in Italy: bulbs guaranteed to last 24,000 hours, to be sold “at a price of my choosing”. The 6.8 billion lire is the total he said he paid in bribes; the interview does not document a single bribe of that amount for the light bulbs.[^zampini-intervista]
As for remuneration, Zampini operated as a private businessman. There is insufficient documentation to give reliable salary figures for the public officials involved at the time.
The claim that someone could set the price of a public supply contract entirely on their own terms conveys a particular understanding of power: taxpayers' money as a pot to be divided up. Checking prices, comparing bids and defending the interests of those footing the bill are precisely what public officials are paid to do.
Sangiuliano and the Galileo who supposedly inspired Columbus
On 23 June 2024, during an event at Taobuk, the then Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, explained that Christopher Columbus wanted to reach the Indies “on the basis of Galileo Galilei's theories”. Radio Radicale preserves a recording of the speech.[^sangiuliano-intervento]
Columbus reached the Americas in 1492. Galileo was born in 1564, seventy-two years later. The chronology makes the claimed influence impossible.[^sangiuliano-cronologia]
A contemporary report by Professione Reporter puts Sangiuliano's remuneration as a minister who was not also an MP at around €110,000 gross per year, with expense reimbursements accounted for separately. This is different from the total personal income shown on a tax return.[^sangiuliano-paga]
Anyone can make a mistake during a speech. It is nevertheless reasonable to expect particular care in recounting history from the person leading the Ministry of Culture. The pay covers that responsibility too, alongside the ability to rely on knowledgeable staff.
Nicole Minetti: her CV and the cost of a regional council seat
Nicole Minetti graduated in dental hygiene from San Raffaele in 2009. She had also worked as a TV hostess and dancer, and later completed a master's degree in technical and assistive healthcare professions. In 2010, she entered Lombardy's Regional Council through Roberto Formigoni's electoral slate, whose candidates were guaranteed seats if he won the regional presidency.[^minetti-cv]
The official historical pay table lists standard remuneration for that office at €9,479.95 gross per month in 2010, falling to €8,531.95 gross per month in 2012, paid over twelve months. Subsistence allowances and expense reimbursements were additional. These are the amounts attached to the office; establishing Minetti's actual total receipts would require her individual payslips.[^minetti-indennita]
On 7 October 2012, interviewed on Domenica Live, Minetti argued that “politics should not be made up only of highly knowledgeable people”, explaining that it should reflect society as a whole.[^minetti-preparazione]
In my view, the comparison with the difficulty of hiring technical staff is particularly revealing here. The expertise required of those deciding how to spend public money should be as verifiable as the expertise required of those protecting a computer network. Those selecting candidates for a slate offering assured seats should explain what skills and experience they intend to put at the public's disposal.
Subsequent legal proceedings led to a final conviction in 2019 and a sentence of two years and ten months for facilitating prostitution in the Ruby-bis case. In 2021, Minetti agreed to a plea-bargained sentence of one year and one month for embezzlement of public funds in the regional expenses case.[^minetti-cv]
On 18 February 2026, Sergio Mattarella granted her a presidential pardon, which became public in April. The president's office explained that the decision was based in part on the serious health condition of a close family member who is a minor and requires assistance and specialist care.[^minetti-grazia] Following further checks, on 4 June 2026 the presidency announced that the conclusions of Milan's Prosecutor General's Office provided no grounds for reconsidering the pardon.[^minetti-verifiche]
A pardon affects the sentence; it is not an acquittal.[^minetti-clemenza] Citizens retain the right to judge how political leaders are selected and how public money is used.
The tax question
In my view, we are being taxed to death while continuing to tolerate far too little accountability for how public money is spent. That is a political judgement; the figures help put the burden into perspective.
In its revised national accounts published in September 2026, Italy's national statistics institute, ISTAT, puts the tax-to-GDP ratio for 2025 at 42.9%. This is an aggregate ratio of taxes and social contributions to gross domestic product, rather than the tax rate paid by each individual.[^istat]
The OECD's Taxing Wages 2026 measures a tax wedge of 45.8% for a single Italian worker with no children earning the average wage, compared with an OECD average of 35.1%. The tax wedge includes income taxes and employee and employer social contributions as a share of total labour costs. Again, this describes a specified case, rather than a percentage that applies equally to everyone.[^ocse]
For anyone hiring a technical specialist, the cost to the business and the employee's take-home pay are therefore very different figures. Any discussion of how to pay for expertise should also address that gap.
My argument is that we entrust the state with too much money relative to the quality of oversight and the accountability we demand of those administering it. That money is earned by people who work, invest and take risks. Politicians should explain precisely what they deliver in return.
Less money to carve up, more accountability
Here is the provocation:
If we paid less tax, politicians who steal would have less to steal. Forced to steal less, perhaps they would even find the time to do some work.
The joke expresses a specific distrust: when politics revolves around distributing appointments, favours and resources, the practical work of government risks becoming a secondary activity. Someone busy maintaining a personal power base has little incentive to ask whether a service works or what it really costs.
Cutting taxes alone does not make a public official honest, nor does it replace oversight. These episodes do not establish an automatic relationship between taxation and corruption. They do support a legitimate political demand: reduce the scope for discretionary dealmaking, require verifiable results and leave more resources with the people who produce them.
The tax cuts I would like to see should be funded by eliminating unnecessary spending, entrenched privileges and duplication, with explicit decisions about priorities. Healthcare, education, justice and cybersecurity require capable people and adequate resources. That is precisely why every euro spent on privileges, waste or private interests matters all the more.
In cybersecurity, paying skilled professionals and giving them the conditions they need to work is spending with an identifiable purpose. Those proposing recruitment should know what people actually earn; those choosing senior managers should assess their abilities; those signing public contracts should be accountable for the value they provide.
Taxpayers are entitled to ask a very simple question: what results are we buying with all this money?
Sources and verification notes
Quotations have been translated from Italian. Links lead to the original sources.
[^zangrillo]: Cybersecurity Italia, 3 November 2026, Minister Paolo Zangrillo's remarks at Orientatalenti.
[^post]: Il Post, 9 November 2026, Why Italy struggles to find cybersecurity experts. The reference article was consulted in full. This text is an independently written opinion article.
[^senato]: Italian Senate, Senators' remuneration. The standard amount falls to €10,064.77 gross per month for senators with other employment. Zangrillo's individual pay records were not obtained; subsistence allowances and reimbursements are not included in the basic remuneration quoted.
[^gelmini]: Sky TG24, 4 October 2011, reproduction of the ministerial statement of 23 September 2011.
[^cern]: CERN, CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso, describing the equipment and the path of the neutrinos.
[^zennaro-paga]: Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), pay schedule published in September 2011, copy preserved by Aetnanet, entry for Zennaro Massimo. The performance-related component is part of the pay schedule, not a bonus awarded for the tunnel episode.
[^zennaro-dimissioni]: Tgcom24, 29 September 2011, Zennaro's resignation as spokesperson and retention of his senior management post. The source confirms annual gross pay of around €156,000.
[^camera]: Italian Chamber of Deputies, Members' remuneration, including the note on reductions introduced in 2011. The figure quoted is the standard remuneration for the office, rather than Gelmini's actual personal total. Ministerial remuneration was also provided for at the time: the historical rules are described in the Chamber's briefing of 18 July 2010.
[^poggiolini-pouf]: L'Unità, 9 November 1993, report on the assets found in the Poggiolinis' homes in Rome, archived issue. The report describes certificates for securities worth around ten billion lire inside the ottoman.
[^poggiolini-tesoro]: Gianni Barbacetto, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 26 March 2019, account of Poggiolini's fortune, republished on the author's website. It distinguishes the securities in the ottoman from the gold bars and other valuables seized.
[^poggiolini-condanna]: Gazzetta Ufficiale (Italy's Official Gazette), 5 July 2014, notice 14A05167. It records the final criminal judgement and the financial liability ruling. The €5,164,569 is an award of damages, rather than a salary or the total amount of bribes.
[^zampini-contesto]: Il Fatto Quotidiano, 7 June 2024, overview of FQ MillenniuM's investigation into corruption in local government. It reports a separate interview, by Ettore Boffano, in which Zampini states a total of 6.8 billion lire; it dates his arrest to 1983.
[^zampini-intervista]: Stefano Lorenzetto, L'Arena, interview with Adriano Zampini, consulted in the complete copy of the 6 August 2023 print edition preserved by the author, pages 8–9.
[^sangiuliano-intervento]: Radio Radicale, 23 June 2024, recording of the event “Taobuk 2024 — Italian identity, cultural identity”.
[^sangiuliano-cronologia]: ANSA, June 2024, account of the statement and the relevant dates.
[^sangiuliano-paga]: Professione Reporter, 7 September 2024, report on Sangiuliano's remuneration. The figure is rounded; it is not taken from an individual payslip obtained through the ministry's website.
[^minetti-cv]: Sky TG24, updated 28 April 2026, profile of Nicole Minetti, her education, entry into politics and legal proceedings. Later developments concerning the pardon are covered by the separately cited official statements from June.
[^minetti-indennita]: Lombardy Regional Council, historical table of councillors' remuneration, Annex B to Regional Law No. 10 of 6 June 2019, entries for 2010 and 2012; official factsheet on remuneration up to 30 June 2013, which distinguishes basic pay, deductions, subsistence allowances and reimbursements, and specifies twelve monthly payments. The figures in the article are gross amounts for the standard remuneration attached to the office.
[^minetti-preparazione]: Il Sole 24 Ore, 7 October 2012, report on Minetti's interview on Domenica Live.
[^minetti-grazia]: Presidency of the Italian Republic, letter to the Ministry of Justice dated 27 April 2026, identifying 18 February as the date of the decree; statement of 11 April 2026 on the humanitarian grounds and the favourable opinion of the judicial authorities.
[^minetti-verifiche]: Presidency of the Italian Republic, 4 June 2026, findings of the inquiries by Milan's Prosecutor General's Office. The statement reports that the allegations in press coverage were found to be untrue and that there were no grounds for reconsidering the pardon.
[^minetti-clemenza]: Presidency of the Italian Republic, The power to grant pardons, explaining their effect on sentences and the continued existence of other criminal-law consequences of a conviction.
[^istat]: ISTAT, September 2026, National accounts — 2010–2025. The article uses the revised annual figure of 42.9%, which superseded the 43.1% estimate released in March 2026.
[^ocse]: OECD, Taxing Wages 2026, data for 2025.