The Region of Sardinia is still in a deficit situation in 2020 (- 200 million) but is clearly improving (+ 62.4%) compared to 2019 (-534.6 million): the negative balance has in fact decreased by over 333 million euros.

This was reported in the report on the equalization of the general account for 2020, of which today the assembled sections of the Court of Auditors have pronounced the regularity.

There is also an overall deficit of health companies of 32 million euros, but this is not yet definitive because the approval of the financial statements of the local health authorities is delayed.

If "the accounting harmonization process had to adapt to the problems of the health emergency from Covid-19", the judges underlined some critical issues.

For example, the Region has not yet equipped itself with a Board of Auditors, despite the repeated reports made on the occasion of the previous equalization judgments "with consequent lack of the essential control activity of the body and the necessary connection between the controls internal and those carried out by the Court of Auditors ".

The judgment for the 2020 financial year also contains a series of wishes: the first concerns the battle for insularity so that "the State takes into due consideration the specificities that derive from the insular condition of the Region".

The judges then said they were opposed to the hypothesis of reinstating the Boards of Directors in the investee entities. A choice that would entail "a multiplication of costs which in previous years had undergone a reduction with the introduction of the sole administrator".

Personnel expenditure, "is down compared to 2019: in 2020 hires were lower than those planned due to the pandemic emergency".

Finally, with regard to the financial aspects of management, the Court points out that at the end of the 2020 financial year, revenues of € 9 billion were ascertained and expenses of € 7.9 billion were committed, with a positive balance between assessments and commitments equal to more than one billion.

"The Court of Auditors recognized the value of the choices made by the Region in a year profoundly marked by the effects of the pandemic which dictated the need for actions capable of facing the socio-economic impact, as well as health, of the emergency", he commented Governor Christian Solinas.

The president of the Sardinia Region also speaks of an "important recognition" on the front of the revenue dispute conducted with the state. In fact, "the November 2019 agreement brought to regional finances an amount, by way of advance, of 473 million euros over 1.5 billion of investment resources. The new agreement signed in October 2021 has redefined in 306, Sardinia's contribution to public finance is 4 million per year, with savings for Sardinian citizens of approximately 230 million per year compared to the initial situation ".

And, he continues, "the Court acknowledges the attribution to the Region of the first 100 million euros per year for the recognition of advances on the compensation of permanent disadvantages and the higher costs that are borne in Sardinia due to its island condition" .

(Unioneonline / F)

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