Two out of three ministries continue to pay their suppliers late. This bad habit that has characterized most of the Italian Public Administration (PA) for decades continued in the first two quarters of this year. Although it is still early to generalise, in the case of ministries we have confirmation that payment delays continue. This is what the CGIA Research Office says.
In the latest survey [second quarter 2023], in fact, the Payment Timeliness Index (ITP) [in summary, the Payment Timeliness Indicator is defined in terms of average late/early payment weighted based on the amount of the invoices and, for its calculation, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has provided detailed operating instructions with the circulars no. 3/2015 and n. 22/2015] for nine out of 14 ministries it was preceded by a plus sign; this means that the majority of these entities did not comply with the legal provisions regarding payments in commercial transactions between PA and private companies [since 2013, following the transposition into our legal system of the European legislation against late payments (EU Directive/2011/7), payment times in commercial transactions between Italian public bodies and private companies cannot normally exceed 30 days ( 60 for some types of supplies, in particular healthcare supplies)].
The most critical situation concerns the Ministry of University and Research: if in the first quarter of this year the average payments were made 12,22 days in advance, in the second the delay exceeded 80 days. Tourism was also bad, after +14,26 in the first quarter, it saw delays rise in the second to +68,80. The Ministry of the Interior is also in trouble: after +46,70 in the first three months, in the second three it dropped to +39,85, but still terribly late compared to the payment times required by law. The situation of the Ministry of Labor is also critical as it recorded +9,45 and +26,28 days in the first and second quarters respectively.
In contrast, there are only a few ministries: if that of Business and Made in Italy has maintained an advance of approximately one day since the beginning of the year, Foreign Affairs has gone from -3,65 to -2,73 days, while the In the first quarter, Defense had recorded a delay of 2,92, but in the second it recovered, paying the invoices 4,33 days early. The only department that is extremely virtuous is Agriculture: if in the first three months of 2023 the payment compared to the contractual deadline was brought forward by 46,25 days, in the second three months it dropped to -17,79 days.
To date, only five ministries have updated the data relating to the ITP for the third quarter of 2023 and only Agriculture (-23,16 days) continues, albeit at a slower pace, along the positive trail recorded in the previous two quarters. The other four - Business and Made in Italy (+16,21 days), Infrastructure and Transport (+16,89), University/Research (+18,51) and Interior (+35,78) - are disconsolately late.
And with the ongoing economic slowdown, it is very likely that in these first nine months of the year other public bodies (bodies, regions, provinces, local health authorities, municipalities, etc.) have also thought about extending payment times. , once again highlighting an irrefutable fact: in Italy the PA struggles to pay its suppliers within the legal limits.
• Businesses await nearly 50 billion in payments
The latest data available for 2022 tell us that our entire PA has a current trade debt towards its suppliers, mostly SMEs, amounting to 49,6 billion euros; practically the same level we had in 2019, the pre-pandemic year.
In relation to GDP, missed payments in Italy amount to 2,6 percent. No other EU27 country has such a high incidence. In short, despite the efforts, our PA continues to be the worst payer in Europe. According to Eurostat, in fact, no other country in the EU has a worse score than ours.
• Tax debts must be offset with trade credits. Now there is a popular initiative bill
To resolve this age-old issue which is putting many SMEs to the test, for the CGIA research office there is only one thing to do: provide by law for dry, direct and universal compensation between the certain liquid and collectible credits accrued by a company towards the PA and the tax and contribution debts that it must honor to the treasury. Thanks to this automatism we would solve a problem that we have been dragging around for decades. And finally, there is the possibility of arriving at a regulatory definition in, hopefully, a reasonably short time. In fact, the Italian Radicals have been collecting signatures (including online) throughout the country for a few months to propose to the Senate a popular initiative bill that follows what is indicated by the CGIA. To find out more go to the dei website Italian radicals.