The Region's financial statement for 2023 is compliant and regular, but the spending capacity is too low. This is the judgment issued this morning by the judges of the Joint Sections of the Court of Auditors in a public hearing, before the representative of the regional council of Alessandra Todde, the Budget assessor, Giuseppe Meloni and the president of the Budget commission of the Regional Council, Alessandro Solinas.
The budget balances were respected, but there was no shortage of scolding and warnings from the reporting magistrates Cristina Ragucci and Lucia Marra and the regional prosecutor Maria Elisabetta Locci. The administrative surplus is approximately 3,800 million euros and, net of the amounts set aside, tied up and earmarked, remains positive and stands at approximately 530 million euros. The cash fund is also positive.
Results that, in sharp increase compared to the 2022 financial year, «could at first glance lead to a positive assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of management» , writes Attorney Locci, but considered together with the «percentage worsening of collections and payments, lead to a completely different conclusion».
The excessive resources in the coffers also highlight the poor spending and planning capacity this year. The list of critical issues is long and the judgment is heavy: "The Region has not appropriately invested the resources available and has not ensured the related services", underlines the prosecutor Locci in her closing speech, "it has shown significant difficulties in the activity that regulates, in cascade, all the others, namely the planning". And still too many budget variations "which have practically distorted the original allocations" during the financial year. Not only that, for the accounting magistrates, the Region in 2023, under the leadership of the center-right of Christian Solinas, has not completed the reorganization process, with the simplification of rules and procedures and "has a plethora of structures and bodies, poorly communicating with each other, with a fragmented or sectoral distribution of competences".
