The accounts will be dealt with by the Court, the revenue court. After all, it is they, the supreme judges of public money, who deal with the investigative power of waste and the management of public bodies, from the Government to the regional councillorships, from bodies to foundations. Constitutional mandate without borders, neither sectoral nor territorial. License to investigate, evaluate and convict. They act with meticulous attention to the regularity of the expenditure procedures and above all to their adequacy. They don't get along with waste, they pursue it and very often condemn it. The news is public: the Court of Auditors of Sardinia has opened an investigation into the accounts of the Mont'e Prama Foundation and the 2022 Archaeological Event. It is not just any procedure since it is none other than the Regional Prosecutor, Bruno Domenico Tridico, who takes ownership .
The Mont'e Prama case
The Mont'e Prama case could not escape the scrutiny of the Treasury Magistrates with its annexes and connections, consultancy assignments, exorbitant expenses for cardboard and monitor rental, thousand and one night press offices, marketing and advertising services. All with the dramatically abandoned archaeological site in the Sinis, with excavations stopped in the mists of time, since the last red cooperative had overlooked the Collina dei Giganti with impunity with bulldozers. They won't be able to dig in the vineyards, but the judges of the Court of Auditors will certainly do it on those deeds that nail down figures and payments, assignments without tender, with a selection of assignment companies to be explained. An investigation, that of the Sardinian Union, which had uncovered not only the cyclopean expenses of an event, Archeologika 2022 and of the Mont'e Prama Foundation, but which had brought out a real system of companies that rotate in the tourism sector of culture and communication. Always the same, always with direct assignments, always with over the top figures.
Weaves & joints
Added to this are corporate connections decoded by our investigation with share crossings between Pisa and Cagliari, almost as if the credit lines did not concern single subjects in any random order, but real holding companies receiving stratospheric figures, all to be consumed in a lightning-fast manner, in a few hours or a few days. The "casus belli", capable of making hundreds of archaeological and cultural cooperatives operating below cost in the archaeological sites of the island indignant, was the two/three days of Archeologika. An organization entrusted by the Region to the Mont'e Prama Foundation. Although the Collina dei Giganti had been totally abandoned for years, the Foundation has found nothing better to do than set itself up as an event organizer, without saving and at a high price. Official documents and deliberative acts will certainly end up in the investigation by the accounting judges. We will have to explain how it was possible to buy 167,000 euros of cardboard to set up nuraghes without even the dignity of papier-mâché, how to rent monitors for two days for 69,000 euros, or entrust consultancy and construction management tasks for hundreds of thousands of euros , or pay a press office at prices of a thousand and one nights, with 15 thousand euros a day for three days, all to be explained, given that press releases can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The beauty of one million euros spent like a river in flood in just three days, 335,000 euros every day, stuff that would be the envy of the Qatar World Cup.
Hidden chasm
All easily documented with official papers. In this story, however, there is more. Much more. In fact, the private offices of the building conceal an "economic-financial chasm" that was to remain "private", hidden from most people.
The question
In the "secret" meanders of the relationship between Viale Trento and the Fondazione dei Giganti, there is, in fact, a black and white confession that was to remain secret in the internal papers. It is here that a question emerges that puts everyone's back against the wall, starting with the Mont'e Prama Foundation: «but where do these figures come from? Why weren't they detailed? ». The fulminant question comes from the Director General of the Regional Tourism Department, put in black and white in the internal letters that recount the tumultuous meeting of 30 May 2022 for the organization of Archeologika 2022. The number one of the regional department, of those sums that rise to excess, he knows nothing. He sees exorbitant figures appear compared to those planned and brings the fateful question to those present: who authorized you? Not even 24 hours go by and the Mont'e Prama Foundation spills the beans and replies with a hard face to the director of the Tourism Department. The letter, inserted in the secret documents of the proceeding, which we possess, opens an incredible glimpse into the affair, complete with a blame game towards the assessor on those expenses which out of the blue more than doubled, without any reasonable motivation.
The confession
The Foundation writes: «... the changed needs in terms of overall requirements originate "EXCLUSIVELY" (in capital letters and bold) from a request that the Department itself presented to the designer in charge of the Mont'e Prama Foundation, specifically during an inspection at the Promenade Covered, to which the undersigned (the president of the writing Foundation) was not present, on February 16, 2022 and, still in my absence, during the Milan international tourism exchange ». There is more and worse in the communication we publish: «Requests which, in detail, concerned the fittings, the technological equipment, the number of stands and other matters - such as a catering service for exhibitors and guests - which have been provided for in the agreement" . Responsibilities all discharged against the councilorship, which in the letter is never identified in a precise figure. Certainly the sequence is growing. The confession becomes bloody.
The doubling
The Foundation writes: "It goes without saying that the increase exclusively concerns action B, in which the costs are - following the requests of the Department - significantly increased compared to the 417,710 euros plus VAT initially envisaged, reaching the figure of 895,200 plus VAT ». All much more than doubled. A difference of almost half a million euros for a two/three day event. The letter in our possession concludes: « Therefore, at present, the documents delivered by the Designer appointed by us are different from the assignment made with resolution number 4 of 18.02. 2022 and contract number 2 dated 03.17.2022. Consequently the same cannot be accepted and approved ». However, after the rejection of those projects with the sums more than doubled, something happens. In fact, the Foundation and the Region suddenly decide to spend double the sums with a lot of resolutions for over one million euros for that two-day fair, excluding the inauguration.
Half a million monitors
The mysteries of the doubling of expenses remain, but a much broader system emerges in all its clarity: dozens of direct and private negotiations throughout Sardinia, with the same methods and with the same companies. The implementing subjects change, we pass from the Mont'e Prama Foundation and arrive at the industrial consortium of Olbia, from holiday trips to Doha and New York to pretend to honor Grazia Deledda, with assignments also in that case to the same companies. A consolidated and rooted mechanism. Millions of euros that escaped the tenders, entrusted to the same companies, from the gold cardboard to the platinum monitors, from the press offices from "Qatar football" to the video producers from "Gone with the Wind". Suffice it to say that in the records of the General Accounting Office of the Region there would be 37 payment orders for the copy shop in Genneruxi which rents out monitors. For 8 months in 2021, a total of 541 thousand euros would have been paid from the documents in our possession. Numbers to make you shiver.
Horticultural consultant
Last detail on this whole story from the Court of Auditors and beyond. The Mont'e Prama Foundation for its accounting relied on a consultant, perhaps not by chance, born in Tresnuraghes and resident in Piazza Sant'Antonio in Macomer. Despite four cross accounts for the Foundation's budget, the fees are important. For two years, 2023/24, the Foundation entrusts her with an assignment, again through direct negotiation, of 52 thousand euros. The VAT number for the settlement of the invoice is shown in the deliberative deed. Too bad that in the Chamber of Commerce that VAT number does not result from an accountant's activity. The chamber of commerce registration shows the cultivation of vegetables, melons, roots and tubers (potatoes), to then continue with the cultivation of oleaginous fruits, viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture. In short, not exactly relevant to the accounts of the Giants of Mont'e Prama.
