There are 2,4 billion Europeans destined for Italy. There's no doubt that it's a hefty sum, which is actually worth much more because it's the key that opens the door to beyond 70 billion in investments funded with i structural funds and reserved for our country in the new 2014-2020 programme. Those 2,4 billion are intended for technical assistance services to the Regions and it is precisely those services, essentially planning and project management of the interventions, on which the ambitions of the local administrations get stuck, losing years in calling tenders for each of the steps of the complex process which should then lead to the realization of the project. How many years? On average 8 and a half. Too many considering that the European program lasts 7, after which either the money has been spent or it is lost.
THE CASE OF POMPEII AND THE WASTED RESOURCES
The Pompeii case is the clearest example of this short circuit. The 2007-13 program has fielded 104 million of euros branded Europe to achieve 39 essential projects to enhance the unique archaeological area in the world and we have managed to spend only 1% of it so far. If not all of them are used by 31 December this year, the EU will take them back down to the last penny. And it is already clear that this is how it will end. Another example, the infrastructure: 46,1 billion funds available, only 9,7 billion funds spent. And what about the reconstruction of the Gela-Aragona aqueduct: started in 2007 two years late, it was supposed to be completed last October. Instead, only 47% of the budget has been spent and will remain half-finished. Same fate for the purifiers of Misterbianco, near Catania, 24% of expenditure realized and now out of time; not to mention the doubling of the Palermo-Messina railway, launched in 2008: "The project seems to me to have essentially stopped for a couple of years - an external observer comments disconsolately on the government portal Opencoesione.gov.it - and I know that it is a work that will never happen. Still, it would be very useful."
NEW STRATEGY
Here because the government, and in particular the undersecretary Graziano Delrio who took over the issue of cohesion funds, want to change strategy. And CONSIP, the operational arm for all procurement of goods and services of the public administration, is preparing with the newborn Cohesion Agency a maxi-tender on services of technical assistance to the Regions. The CEO Domenico Casalino it was last week in the Public Works Committee of the Senate to illustrate the advantages on the management of public procurement obtained from the Consip platform: 14 billion tenders banned in 2014, 8 billion euros saved.
But the new maxi-tender won't be like the others: for the first time, in fact, it won't serve to save and cut costs but to earn resources. And to hook up the huge pie of the structural funds: 44 billion (half in the South) are the slice reserved for Italy which is flanked by another 20 billion in national co-financing. The overall total is close to 70 billion in investments in research, broadband, energy, environment, cultural centres, infrastructures, logistics. A mountain of money which Italy certainly cannot afford to give up.
THE MAXI-RACE
The new maxi-tender on services (the market consultation document has already been published) will therefore set an example. Consip is pushing the accelerator with the intention of to ban it by June and to award it a year later, very quickly therefore given that the average times are 18-24 months when the individual local administrations move. The first lot will be 500 million, which can be replicated in subsequent batches. AND' the method that changes drastically: the industrial model will be introduced "just in time", put in place by the Americans in the 80s to optimize logistics and now universally adopted. In other words, no warehouse, the material arrives at the time of assembly. Applied to services for the Regions, it means that Consip will tender a list of services e will define a catalog (presumably it includes about forty entries) pre-awarded. When the administrations want to access the structural funds, instead of launching their tender, they will be able to activate the services already negotiated by Consip in a few hours. Which means almost 2 years of time saved and the concrete possibility of returning within the limits of the community programme. And the mirage of the 70 billion Europeans, 10 billion a year for 7 years, it's not that far anymore.
