For the Mereu, Riva di Villasanta, and Monfenera barracks in Cagliari, a budget of €75 million was estimated. At least €260 million will be needed. The plan for the Pisano barracks in Teulada, however, was based on an estimated cost of €65 million; the new calculation shows that the requirement is €300 million.

The costs of the major "Green Barracks" project launched by the Ministry of Defense to renovate 28 military sites across Italy have increased fivefold. Five infrastructures considered "strategic" are in Sardinia. The total cost has gone from €1.4 billion to (at least) €6.5 billion. The money isn't enough. So Rome has decided to focus, for now, on only seven facilities. All of the Sardinian ones have been put on hold and are not part of the feasible phase of the major project to eco-sustainably modernize the star-studded facilities. The timeframe has been extended, on paper, to 2045. It's all due, it seems, to "the rising prices of the construction sector and raw materials, the pandemic crisis, and the 110% super bonus." The Ministry told the Court of Auditors, which recently, after asking for an account of errors amounting to several billion, went on a rampage.

The announcement

It's 2020. In Cagliari, at the "prestigious Palazzo de La Vallée," as the Army statement stated, the meeting "Green Barracks - for a cutting-edge Army in a modern country" is being held. The highest military and civilian authorities are present, as they say. The Army Chief of Staff, General Salvatore Farina, describes them as "next-generation military bases, efficient, functional, inspired by innovative construction criteria with low environmental impact and reduced maintenance costs." Barracks are announced with "kindergartens and sports facilities also open to the public, green areas, and indoor shooting ranges and training areas."

The Court of Auditors

Soon, Italians would be locked down due to the pandemic. And this, too, according to the documents, affected the planning. This is evident from the report of the Concurrent Control Board at the Central Section for the Management of State Administrations of the Court of Auditors. The report, dated December 2024, states that "an initial experimental phase lasting 11 years, from 2023 to 2032, was originally planned for the awarding of services and the construction of works in the areas selected with the final objective." There were 28 in total, including the Sardinian barracks. But the Ministry of Defense, due to rising costs, decided to limit itself to seven (and the Sardinian ones are excluded). "Between the two amounts" envisaged for the remaining facilities, "a significant difference emerges, which leads this Board to believe that the preliminary study reveals substantial shortcomings in the planning and parametric estimate of the financial requirements for the investment under consideration." Such a glaring error has led to terrible delays even for the projects that had been focused on in the first phase.

The panning

The discrepancy for the entire plan is billions. "It is crucial to note that the lack of realistic estimates in quantifying the funding required to complete the entire multi-year program, based on the further phases envisaged," writes the Court of Auditors, "certainly hinders the procurement of the future financial resources desired by the Ministry." The accounting judges also note that "the resources initially estimated for the implementation of the 28 interventions were sufficient for only seven of them. Therefore, to realistically allow the continuation of the further phases of the Program," which also includes Sardinia, it is deemed necessary for the Administration to first estimate the realistic costs required to complete each of the twenty-one remaining projects, on which basis it can request and, if necessary, obtain the necessary funding, in line with the general programming principle." Moreover, the Ministry of Defense thought it was exempt from uploading data to the platforms of the authority overseeing spending and its progress. The Court of Auditors has stated that this is not the case.

The procedure

The measure concludes with a series of recommendations. In the following months, the Ministry of Defense explained its reasons and provided a rough timetable: what was supposed to begin in 2021 and be completed (at the latest) by 2032 (like the "green" barracks in Cagliari and Teulada) will see completion—perhaps—in 2045, the new deadline. Meanwhile, in Cagliari, vast areas remain under military control. And if the new facilities are supposed to be "efficient," perhaps this means that the old ones, which will remain as such, are not.

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