Fondazione Etica report on procurement management. Encouraging data in view of the Pnrr
Regions now pay on time
They pay 12 institutions in advance. Lazio on pole. Latecomer Molise
The regions pay companies and professionals in a timely manner. That is, they comply with the community deadlines (directive 2000/35/EC, transposed in Italy by Legislative Decree 231/2002) which requires payment to public suppliers within 30 days (60 for healthcare) from receipt of invoices.
The good news in perspective of the Recovery Plan, which entrusts the governors with a leading role in the implementation and management of projects (unlike the municipalities, the regions will participate in the PNRR control room at Palazzo Chigi), comes from a report by Ethical foundation which examined the data on procurement management published by the regions in the «transparent administration» section of their respective websites. The report highlights how almost all regions (17 out of 21) are now able to honor their commitments promptly or with slight delays compared to the EU deadline. There are 12 regions able to pay suppliers even in advance of the deadline and the primacy of virtuosity goes to Lazio which manages to pay the invoices 25 days before the deadline. Followed by Tuscany and Liguria with 22 days in advance. Behind the podium, the other regions that manage to pay suppliers in advance are: Marche (-20 days), Umbria (-19), Veneto (-17), Friuli Venezia Giulia (-14), the Lombardy (-13), Emilia Romagna (-12), Sardinia (-10), the autonomous province of Trento (-8), Valle d'Aosta (-6). As can be seen, among the southern regions, only Sardinia manages to pay its invoices in advance.
The time limit of 30-60 days is significantly exceeded only by Basilicata and Molise which respectively pay in 88 and 100 days after the deadline. In third place in the ranking of latecomers is Campania which still manages to pay within 34 days of the deadline. The EU average of payments is exceeded by 23 days by Abruzzo, by 18 days by Sicily, by 10 days by Calabria, by 7 days by Piedmont and by two days by the autonomous province of Bolzano. There is no data for Puglia because the region has not published them on its website. The report, edited by Paola Caporossi, highlights another very interesting data on the management of tenders, debunking a cliché that claims direct assignments (the most at risk in terms of corruption, precisely due to the greater discretion exercised by the public administration in choice of supplier) particularly popular in the South. Nothing more false. Direct assignments, on the other hand, prove to be preferred by the northern regions, while the southern regions are precisely the ones in which the most tenders are held. In Veneto, the 88% of tenders is assigned with direct assignments, a trend that is also making headway in Valle d'Aosta (85%) and Emilia-Romagna (83.7%). On the contrary, the regions most fond of open procedures are those of the South. Basilicata directly awarded 17% of its total contracts, followed by Calabria with 23.2% and Lazio with 27.5%. "Recourse to direct credit lines therefore appears to be more frequent in the best-performing regions", observes the Foundation, even if the amount remains limited. In Veneto, for example, if it is true that 88% of the total contracts are awarded without a tender, it is equally true that these awards represent only 6.5% of the total amount of the contracts. The same applies to Valle d'Aosta and Emilia-Romagna which have the highest percentages of direct credit lines, immediately after Veneto, but with overall amounts that stop at 17% and 28% respectively of the total. No anti-corruption alarm, therefore, even if, explains the Foundation led by Gregorio Gitti, "an excessive use of direct credit lines by one region compared to the others can constitute an alert to be monitored over time".
