A Plethora of Presidents

Italians, who rarely agree on anything, generally concede-indeed sometimes boast-that their country is just about as inefficient as any in Europe. But no one can say precisely why. Too many strikes and labor problems perhaps? Too many public holidays and long weekends? A more plausible explanation, according to a new survey compiled by Mediobanca, Italy's biggest investment bank, may be that there are too many chiefs in government and not enough Indians. By Mediobanca's count, there are 59,340 presidents running government agencies, or one president for every 900 men, women and children in the country.

The roll is headed by the President of Italy, Giovanni Leone, whose principal task is overseeing the formation of new governments. Since cabinets and coalitions topple frequently in Italy this is almost a full-time assignment. Not so the work of the lesser eminences who preside over such agencies as the Insurance and Welfare Agency for Veterinarians, the National Agency for Assistance to Infants in Border Regions and the Provident and Assistance Board for Midwives.

Not only is the president of an agency entitled to a full-time salary, but he usually is supported by a board of directors. In a nation of 54 million people, as a result, 1,000,000 men and women sit on government boards. Many of the boards are political sinecures. Small wonder that their output is at times strangely inadequate. Five years ago, a board was created to expedite housing construction for the victims of a Sicilian earthquake. The board was recently abolished without having built a single home; nevertheless, it somehow spent all of the $344 million that had been appropriated to it. What makes the plethora of presidents so scandalous is that there are all too few technicians working under them. There are, for instance, at least 1,000 presidents of assorted health agencies in Italy, or one for every 100 doctors.

Not even Mediobanca professes to know how to dispose of the presidential surplus. They can scarcely be sent into private industry; there are already 41,336 corporate presidents holding sway there. They certainly cannot join the armed forces. Italy presently has 541 generals to command an army of 267,570 men. (The U.S., by contrast, has 508 generals for an army more than three times as large.) As for the Italian navy, it has 1.23 admirals for every vessel in the fleet.

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