ROME -- Rome Commissioner Francesco Paolo Tronca has vowed to resolve a scandal relating to city-owned apartments in highly sought after areas of the capital being rented for prices as low as 10 euros a month, investigators say.

 It was revealed that 80% of occupants were without a contract, leading to a loss of 100 million euros a year for the city council. Council officials are suspected of having given the properties, often in historic parts of the city, to political allies, business partners and friends, investigations show.

 Among the most shocking cases brought to light so far are discoveries of an apartment with a view of the Roman Forum for the meagre sum of 23 euros a month, another in the luxury central Corso Vittorio Emanuele going for 24 euros, and a property in Borgo Pio, close to St. Peter's Basilica, for only 10 euros a month. Such properties would normally go for well over 2000 euros on the regular open market.

 Tronca, brought in to run city hall as an emergency measure after the former mayor resigned over an expenses scandal, unearthed the polemic on Monday, saying that, "I realised that an up-to-date and detailed census on the property of Roma Capitale did not exist, and I have set up monitoring, with expert teams particularly in information and analysis, which has begun with the first municipality and will continue onto all the others."

 "We think there are grey zones," he underlined. "The census covers tens of thousands of apartments owned by the Council, but how many exist that are not included in the census and escape our attention? This is the challenge." Tronca has promised to provide the prosecutors with the results of the first 574 uncovered cases.

 Not all the properties were linked to council patronage, however, with some simply being occupied by illegal tenants.

 Massimo, one of the tenants living illegally without a contract in Via del Colosseo in central Rome, unabashedly told Il Messaggero newspaper that for many years he had been paying 190 euros a month to the state for his 50 metres squared apartment. "I moved in in 1984, and it didn't seem right to give nothing. At first we were paying 50,000 lira, then it increased. No one has ever said anything to me."

 Some of the properties are also occupied by older citizens living on small pensions, some of whom are in agreement with the council's new clean-up operation. "I only receive 500 euros a month for my pension," said Benito, also living in Via del Colosseo, "but there are people with enormous incomes of several thousand euros who stay here with no right. They are the ones that should be in trouble."

ft