“Our ideal formula is the following: the PA and the contracting stations have the role of guidance, planning and control; to the external technicians the planning”. Major public works are at a standstill, infrastructures are not taking off and European funds are lost. This is the new alarm raised by the president of the National Council of Engineers, Armando Zambrano, who relaunches and calls for a drastic revision of the system in force, that of the integrated tender, in which the contracting station also prepares the project or delegation to the contractor only the definitive one, limiting himself to drafting only the preliminary one.
"Of the public works envisaged by the Objective Law of 2001 - states a statement from the CNI - to date, just 16% have been completed. Of the initial 150 billion euros envisaged, only 44,8 have been awarded, less than a third!”. The interventions actually carried out, then, amount to 3,4 billion euros, just 7,7% of the figures awarded. Why did the goal fail? Is the cause only the economic crisis? Some answers can be found in an analysis by the Study Center of the National Council of Engineers (CNI) entitled "Public works: critical issues and prospects in the European scenario".
Researchers from the National Council of Engineers show how some procurement mechanisms have compromised the effectiveness of the strategic infrastructure program. Many critical issues can be traced back to the type of contract with which the work is awarded and carried out. Some types of contracts such as the integrated one or that of the General Contractor, from exceptions have become the rule. Precisely these two forms of contract have generated an immoderate increase in costs during construction. "In the case of works concluded to date with integrated tenders, the incidence of the cost of the variants on the award amount was 118%, compared to a general average, among the concluded works, already high, equal to 106%".
Integrated procurement has often proved inefficient. In many cases it has led to the doubling of the budgeted costs, to an extent significantly higher than the works carried out with execution-only contracts. The latter today represent a minority share of the contracts. In the case of the Objective Law, for example, they amount to 13% of the amounts awarded, compared to over 30% of the awards made with integrated tenders. In countries such as the United Kingdom, where the cycle of the construction sector has not experienced serious repercussions as in Italy, the execution-only contract represents, on the contrary, over 60% of the expenditure of the contracting authorities. In short, the integrated contract should not only be limited, but also when it is used it is appropriate that the executive design be put out to tender, avoiding the definitive one.
“In the light of these facts – commented Armando Zambrano, President of the CNI – we believe it is necessary to activate a process of greater qualification of the contracting Stations. On the other hand, the planning and control function performed by the Stations should be kept as distinct as possible from the planning activities. This must be entrusted to external technicians. This is why we have been insisting for some time that the centrality of the project is restored”.
Attachments: Cni survey summary.pdf
