The President of the State Council of Ticino responds to the League’s inquiry about a Supsi professor’s presence on the board of directors of the Campione d’Italia Casino.
“The activity was declared and authorized according to Supsi’s internal procedures for additional assignments.” With these words, the President of the State Council of Ticino Norman Gobbi responded to the inquiry presented by the League (first signatory Omar Belli) regarding the presence of a professor from the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland on the board of directors of the Campione d’Italia Casino (a position that was also confirmed after the recent renewal of the board).
The League councilors expressed their surprise that “a Supsi professor (perhaps even active in the same Department that analyzes, studies, and proposes actions to counter pathological gambling in our Canton)” would sit on the Casino’s board.
However, the Ticino State Council’s response seems to leave no room for any kind of controversy. First of all, “under the current regulatory and institutional framework, Supsi independently manages any additional activities of its staff, in compliance with internal regulations and principles of transparency and compatibility, without any obligation to notify the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (Decs) or the State Council, which therefore were not aware of the specific situation.”
Furthermore, “the person who sits on the Casino di Campione’s board works in the economic area and is not involved in any way with projects studying pathological gambling. Additionally, their role on the Casino’s board exclusively concerns technical aspects related to the financial restructuring of the facility and has no connection with the operational or promotional management of gambling. Therefore, the commitment notified by the employee regarding their position on the board is not considered to be in conflict with activities carried out within Supsi, as it corresponds to the application of their expertise in the economic-financial field.”
Supsi, Gobbi clarifies, has no intention to intervene: “The authorization was granted in 2021, after joint evaluation between the Deass Management and Supsi’s General Management. The mandate was deemed compatible in terms of time and topics with academic activity and free from elements of conflict of interest. As emphasized previously, the employee’s role is limited to technical consultation on the entity’s financial restructuring” and therefore “after careful evaluation of the situation, considering the above, no intervention is deemed necessary, as Supsi’s internal procedures were correctly followed and no additional critical elements are known.”
