Consultancies for almost three million (2 million and 873 thousand euros) divided into three years: these are those planned by the Regional Council with a resolution of last June 18. A sector that previously had a limit: it could not exceed 436 thousand euros per year, increased to 540 thousand in 2021. Now there is no longer a ceiling and the executive of Alessandra Todde plans an expenditure of over 873 thousand euros for the current year and one million for each of the two following years. A decision taken "taking into account the specific and high professionalism necessary for the performance of the priority functions identified by the Regional Council and the lack or insufficiency of the same professionalism in the staff of the Region system".

The assignments are various: one of 100 thousand euros for "the reduction of the shareholding held by the regional administration in Abbanoa", two others of 280 thousand euros for "support of the Regional Pnrr Service and Support Office for the Authority responsible for the Development and Cohesion Fund of the Region". And again: 70 thousand euros are intended to pay for "a consultancy relating to the analysis of the accounting and financial situation of the Janna company", 40 thousand for an assignment concerning the scope of the activity of reforming the legislation on the assignment of public residential housing. But there are also more than 70 thousand euros to find a professional to lend a hand on the Revenue dispute and 280 thousand euros are needed for "two assignments to two experts in the legislative field for the preparation of the text of the Statutory Law to be presented to the Regional Council for the adoption of the resolution proposal to be transmitted to the Regional Council and for the identification of a new electoral law".

"Sobriety and transparency aside: the Todde Council continues to treat the Region as a political placement agency and today it is going even further, arrogating to itself the right to rewrite the fundamental rules of our democracy without even involving the regional council". The controversy was triggered by opposition regional councilor Alessandro Sorgia, who accuses: "This is yet another "batch" of external positions that is added to a long list of consultancies, fiduciary appointments and staff built in these first months of the legislature. A real institutionalized armchair factory, financed with public money and managed in an opaque manner".

But the strongest criticism concerns the method: "It is unacceptable that the Council entrusts external experts with the task of writing fundamental rules for the institutional and democratic structure of the Region without a preliminary passage in the Council, without involving the council groups, without listening to the citizens. They act in silence, as if democracy could be entrusted to a few paid professionals rather than to a public, transparent and institutionally correct debate".

The association Sardegna chiama Sardegna is also harsh: «It is a decision that poses very serious problems, both on a democratic level and on a political-institutional level. Relying on external consultancy is not, in itself, a mistake. But in this case it is a reversal of democratic logic. We start with consultancy before even opening an institutional and public debate on two fundamental issues such as the reform of the electoral law and the statutory law», we read in a note, «secondly, it appears to be yet another waste of public resources. The president and the council already have qualified internal resources: just think of the general management of the presidency and the Office of the president, with its rich staff built thanks to LR 10/2021, the so-called “armchair factory” law inherited from Solinas and not cancelled or reformed».

Enrico Fresu

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