Fondazione Etica with ANAC on the prevention of corruption in the PNRR.

Statements by President Busia

”There are many resources with Pnrr funds, and there is a risk that they will arouse the appetites of crime. We must not only avoid it, but also take up the challenge of the Pnrr as a tool to change the Public Administration, to create a culture of Good Administration".
That's what the said president of the AnacJoseph Busia, this morning December 14 at the Teatro Quirino in Rome, of the VIII edition of the Day of the Head of Corruption Prevention and Transparency, where the Minister for Public AdministrationPaul Zangrillo.

“The prevention of corruption is essential – reiterated Busia -, repression is not enough. Having clear and certain rules means making the country progress, not creating obstacles to growth and development. The Procurement Code it is, for this reason, an essential element of the Pnrr, but it is necessary to combine simplification with transparency and controllability". “Brevity does not necessarily help and speed up – warned Busia -. When working with such complex regulatory tools, results are achieved not with an ax but with a scalpel. We hope that in the end this spirit will prevail in the legislative path that will lead to the new code. We place great emphasis on the digitization of races, from start to finish, and there National database of public contracts of Anac, that Europe there
asked to upgrade, it is the keystone”. 

Speaking on National anti-corruption plan, approved by Anac and which will be valid for the three-year period 2023-2025, Busia underlined that “the prevention of corruption needs to identify areas where the risk is greatest, otherwise there is a risk of wasting energy. Selection means identifying the priorities in each organization and concentrating one's action on those. This takes leadership and courage."

The statements of Minister Zangrillo

The Minister of Public Administration Paul Zangrillo, said he was very satisfied with the work done by Anac. "The role of ANAC and prevention plans in the fight against corruption are fundamental, also in view of the full implementation of the Pnrr. The 2022 anti-corruption plan, together with the measures envisaged by our legal system, such as the three-year prevention plans, will be the tools that we will necessarily have to use to try to reach the 2026 target on the National recovery and resilience plan “. 

“In Italy – continued the minister – we have improved our ranking by ten positions, but there is still a widespread perception that the phenomenon of corruption is still extremely high. it is certified byEurobarometer 2022 which shows how 89% of the interviewees believe that corruption in Italy is still widespread compared to a European average of 68 percent. 32% of the people interviewed believe that the corruption phenomenon has effects on themselves compared to the EU average of 24%.

“In the five-year period 2017-2021 – continued the minister – the crimes ascertained against public spending amounted to 34 billion euros for a total of 115,000 subjects who were reported. Therefore the direct and indirect costs of corruption are very high costs for the community not only from an economic point of view but also from a social point of view because they dramatically undermine the perception of citizens and investors, widen the gap of trust and credibility that citizens have towards the State and institutions and this produces a great obstacle for the development of the country. I am thinking of the collapsing courts, the loss of foreign investments, the reviled environment, the creation of public works that become infinite paths.

A Bank of Italy survey carried out immediately before the pandemic, highlights that the average duration in Italy to carry out a work worth up to 300 thousand euros is four years and 10 months, almost five years, and goes from five to eleven years for works worth more than 5 million euros. And the relevant figure is that 40 percent" for the construction of public works "is dedicated to bureaucratic steps. So if I think of the challenges we are facing and the most important challenge for the development of our country is called Pnrr, certainly then we must ask ourselves the problem of not being hostage to this bureaucratic uncertainty, to these complications and complexities that derive from corruption phenomena ”.