Italy's avalanche of scandals thunders on

LAND AT Milan's Malpensa airport and think of the millions of pounds its construction fetched in bribes to local political parties. Drive along the autostrada and spare a thought for once mighty ministers who awarded the contracts now shivering in fear of jail.

Stop for a cappuccino in Verona and wonder it is not soured by the fraud at the central dairy. Behind that alpine hotel in Alto Adige or tourist village in the deep south could be public funds acquired through huge kick-backs.

The Venice lagoon and the very air one breathes are that little bit cleaner at the cost of rake-offs on anti-pollution devices. Public swimming pools, sports grounds, hospitals and the large, expensive buildings local authorities award themselves all have huge question marks over them: how much was the rake-off and who got it?

The avalanche of scandals in Italy thunders on, gathering in size and speed, horrifying the public, terrifying politicians and public servants and hastening the collapse of the country's political system. Yesterday a dozen new ones, or new developments in current investigations, filled the newspapers. Nowadays they have little room for anything else.

'Where on earth are we going to put them all?' an official of Milan's San Vittore jail asked after a further round-up of suspects in the city's 'Clean Hands' mega-investigation last week. A pentito (supergrass), Roberto Mongini, who spent 17 days in San Vittore, said: 'So many entrepreneurs, financiers and politicians had passed through its doors there that only the foyer of La Scala Opera House can compete with it.'

A year after 'Clean Hands' began, prime suspects and extorted entrepreneurs are providing an infinite number of new leads. The overworked magistrates are exhausted. 'We just can't keep up with all the confessions,' one said. Yesterday Bettino Craxi, the Socialist Party leader, former prime minister and the best-known suspect, was notified of a fourth investigation against him.

According to the weekly Il Mondo, more than 100,000 people are involved in investigations so far. Some 3,000bn lire (pounds 1.4bn) are estimated to have been creamed off by the parties. How much more went directly into politicians' pockets cannot even be guessed at. Mario Chiesa, the first person to be accused in Milan, and a relatively small fish compared with those that came later, had the equivalent of nearly pounds 3m salted away abroad and expensive property in Italy.

And the scandals that have hit more than 30 towns and cities so far can only be the beginning, since this kind of corruption is known to have been the practice virtually everywhere.

Achille Occhetto, leader of the ex-Communists, proposed a vote of no-confidence in Giuliano Amato's government yesterday, saying 'the republic and democracy cannot perish suffocated by scandals'. But he is expected to fail because the majority want someone clean - Mr Amato is not under suspicion - to run the country during this time of crisis and uncertainty.

Rome's shaky city council fell on Tuesday, hit by the arrest of Carmelo Molinari, the Christian Democrat councillor responsible for urban planning. He is alleged to have taken hundreds of millions of lire in exchange for construction permits and on purchases of buildings for public use. In Chieti, on the Adriatic coast, almost the entire town council and four senior town officials are facing charges of extortion and abuse of office connected with the building of new schools.

The offices of RAI, Italy's broadcasting corporation, have been searched and documents photocopied by the fiscal police, investigating alleged corruption to do with contracts for programmes made by outside companies.

There have been more searches at l'Avanti, the Socialist Party paper, which is already in deep trouble, and in the Environment Ministry. The heads of more than 400 firms that had contracts with Anas, the state road-building and maintenance organisation, have been summoned for questioning about suspected bribes. Reports indicate that the Anas scandal, because of the massive public spending on roads, could become one of Italy's biggest scandals.