(To Paolo Zabeo - CGIA Studies Office Coordinator) Whenever the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) deals with the issue of trade payables of the Public Administration (PA), it presents unlikely partial and average data.
Today he said that in 2019 the PA paid its suppliers after 48 days, with only one day late compared to the contractual deadlines, combining healthcare payments (which by law must be honored within 60 days) and those of all other sectors (which, however, must be paid within 30 days).
If you go to see the punctual data of the main sectors of the PA it turns out that the central Administrations in 2019 paid after 60 days (30 days late compared to the provisions of the law), the Regions and provinces after 33 (3 days after the deadlines required by law) and local authorities after 50 (20 days late after the provisions of the legislation). Healthcare, while liquidating suppliers 50 days after the invoice was issued, did so 10 days in advance. And it is precisely the result of this sector that, for the most part, has contributed to lowering the general average which, of course, is an inconsistent figure, therefore not significant at all.
It is a pity that the MEF is still unable to tell us what the total debt of our PA towards companies is, which according to Eurostat, however, would be almost 50 billion euros (net of the capital component). And don't even tell us how many PAs are monitored by the Commercial Credit Platform (CCP) managed by the technicians of the Ministry of Economy.
Because it is well known that only a part of the public administrations is registered with the PCC, and therefore is monitored by the MEF, while a large part of the PA is not. The latter, not passing through the platform, affects the result of this monitoring, allowing us to say that the data presented today are once again partial and not very representative.