(Telestock) – “We need to limit the phenomenon” of cascading subcontracting “which is only to the advantage of those at the top of the procurement chain and are paid by workers, small business owners and the contracting authority itself. The more it is used only when justified, the better”The president of the Anti-Corruption Authority said this, Joseph Busia, during a hearing at the Chamber’s Environment Commission, on the resolutions to the corrective decree on the public contracts code. On the cascade subcontracting, he reported, “we can work both on the motivations and on the controls when we go beyond the second level, foreseeing, for example, that after the second level we cannot act if there is no authorization from the contracting station and that we cannot act if all the checks have not been done
It would be better to work on the timing of payments to companies, which are a real problem for Italy, and not compress the time needed to verify that the work is done well”, Busia added. “It’s better to take more time there and instead help small and medium-sized enterprises to access the market” he added.
“The two qualifying elements of the new code are digitalization and qualification of contracting authorities and economic operators through reputational ratings. These are two of the main innovations that the new code has introduced and that must be maintained and, if necessary, strengthened. We are not taking any steps backwards on this”. These are measures, he added, “which guarantee and concretely solve many of the other problems that may arise.”
“Ensure a fairer, more transparent and accessible public procurement system for micro and small enterprises, protecting the quality of the works and avoiding unfair practices”. This is what they asked for Confartigianato Imprese and CNA during a hearing at the Chamber’s Environment Commission on the resolutions to the corrective decree of the Public Contracts Code. “The resolutions – in the opinion of Confartigianato and Cna – represent an opportunity to introduce necessary corrections to improve the effectiveness of the Code and the transparency of procurement”. In particular, the Confederations “reiterated the need for an automatic revision of prices also for subcontracting companies, to ensure fairness and prevent illicit enrichment”. They also support “the need to limit cascading subcontracting to a single level, to avoid unfair competition practices and guarantee the quality of services”.
In public procurement, “the return of the price review institute, present in all the best European and international legislation, is positive, whose absence, in fact, has determined the risk of a real block of the sector” but clarifications are needed on the activation threshold of 5%. He told the president of Ance, Federica Brancaccio, during a hearing at the Chamber’s Environment Commission, on the resolutions to the corrective decree on the public contracts code. The mechanism, Brancaccio recalled, “is activated when there is a variation in the cost of the work, either upwards or downwards, exceeding 5% of the overall amount, operating to the extent of 80 percent of the variation itself” but “for it to be truly effective, it must be clarified that 5% constitutes only the threshold for activating the revision mechanism, while the 80% to be paid must be calculated with respect to the entire variation that has occurred, and not only to the part exceeding 5%”.
The new Public Contracts Code “has brought several innovations of great importance. However, one year after its application, some improvements are necessary which, if made within the scope of a corrective decree to the code, may have the capacity to resolve certain application problems and improve the overall system of the codeand”. He stated this Alliance of Cooperatives nduring a hearing at the Environment Commission of the Chamber, on the resolutions to the corrective decree on the public procurement code. “The resolutions presented by the parliamentary groups represent a very positive contribution to the discussion” underlined the Cooperative Alliance which “shares much of the content, in particular with regard to the issue of price revision and greater market opening”. On the subject of price revision, the Cooperative Alliance “proposes a reduction and in any case that it be clarified that the 5% threshold indicated in the law does not constitute a deductible but a threshold for activating the price revision clause, also providing, in the text of the Code, an explicit indication, as a cause for activation, of the increase in the fee linked to the cost of labor resulting from the renewals of all the CCNLs applied by the contractor, to all services with a high labor intensity manpower, as well as contracts relating to social services and hospital, welfare and school catering”