Palermo, close scrutiny on publicly-owned companies intensifies

Last Updated: July 24, 2023

Palermo, stretta finale sulle aziende partecipate

#Palermo
Companies warned, companies (almost) saved. Or perhaps, even sunk. The revised balancing plan, approved at the end of June, entails a series of constraints to contain expenses, confining them to the values of service contracts from three years ago, which will not allow administrators any additional room for maneuver. It will be a tough ten years (the duration of the plan), characterized by strict rules that, objectively, it is unknown how well they can be respected: the risk may be a decrease in the quality and quantity of services offered to the city in order to balance the books.

Deputy Mayor Carolina Varchi and the Head of Similar Control Service, Roberto Pulizzi, sign a concise, agile, and fast directive, divided into eight points, sent to all companies fully controlled by the Municipality, which delivers the rules for the Board of Directors to adhere to without the possibility of exceptions. Moreover, the financial situation of the companies clearly indicates the actual possibility that “latent charges and potential liabilities” may arise during the ten-year duration, which is why “it has been necessary to adopt corrective actions – wrote Pulizzi and Varchi – to be applied from the 2023 fiscal year onwards, and any failure to apply them, even partially, may compromise the balance sheet and the recovery that the plan itself aims to achieve.”

A comprehensive article by Giancarlo Macaluso is available in today’s edition of Giornale di Sicilia.