Anti-mafia spending 'investment' for Italy, crimefighter say

True development contingent on curbing mob - national prosecutor

(ANSA) Naples, June 30 - Southern Italy's economy will never develop truly as long as powerful organised crime gangs scare off foreign investors, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor, Franco Roberti, said Monday. "Up to now security and justice have been seen as debits against the state budget, now the philosophy of public expenditure needs to be inverted so that they are considered as investments," Roberti told reporters on the fringes of a ceremony awarding the Amato Lamberti prize in Naples.

Roberti called on politicians "to make a choice that has never been done so far and consider the struggle against organised crime a priority for government action." "This means putting all the means necessary into the field, without looking too much at the spending review, but going beyond it in the name of the priority that the fight against organised crime ought to be". "There will never be true development in Italy's south as long as there is the organised crime risk for investors, especially foreign investors," he added. "That is why I say that security and justice are necessary for economic development and should be considered investments," Roberti said.