We ask Government representatives for immediate and concrete guarantees for companies that today find themselves with full tax drawers and empty coffers due to the concrete impossibility of transferring the Superbonus credits. Today it remains impossible, in a legislative and regulatory framework of extreme uncertainty, to transfer these credits (as many as 35 modification interventions since 2020) and when this happens, the conditions imposed by banks and financial institutions border on usury, with rates above 30%”.
Substandard loans and PNRR: government intervention is needed
This is the alarm raised by Antonio Lombardi, national president of Federcepicostruzioni, during his speech last Monday in Naples at the “Congress of Ideas”, during which he touched on two particularly burning issues for the construction sector and for the whole the supply chain: tax credits deriving from Superbonus interventions and other building bonuses and the use of PNRR resources.
Among Lombardi’s requests, a quick regulation that leads to an exit strategy on the Superbonus and on the transfer of credits, directly activating state-owned companies. “The Government must also urgently intervene to defuse this very dangerous bomb that is about to explode: 20,000 companies are unable to cede 25 billion in tax credits and 30,000 condominiums are left with scaffolding erected, work suspended. There are already numerous disputes that have arisen between businesses and condominiums: we need to intervene to avoid a real economic, social and employment bloodbath.” The president underlines the emergence of situations that are increasingly difficult to manage: just think, for example, that in the first 9 months of 2023, over 900 construction companies went bankrupt, also due to a lack of liquidity linked to the transfer of credits. “Politics must assume the responsibility of protecting businesses and families from the dramatic consequences that could arise”.
Streamline laws and bureaucracy
Another important chapter, the PNRR and the slowness in implementing interventions. Although 101.9 billion euros of funding disbursed by the European Union have been reached, spending linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan is still stuck at 42 billion: “The Court of Auditors has raised the alarm, highlighting a serious risk for ten of the objectives set for 2023″.
For the president of Federcepicostruzioni the reasons lie in bureaucracy. “We are the country of 110,000 laws. Already in 1901 the then President of the Council of Ministers, Giuseppe Zanardelli, said that Italy had too many laws tempered by non-compliance”. Hence the renewed call for deregulation and de-bureaucratization: “We have seven times more laws than France, Germany and the United Kingdom combined, and a huge spending problem.”
The numbers reeled off by Lombardi are truly impressive: to complete a public work in Italy it takes an average time of three years and two months for investments of up to one million euros; five years and two months for investments from one million to 5.5 million; 7 years for investments from 5.5 to 15 million; over 10 years for investments exceeding 15 million euros. Considering that only a third of this timeframe relates to execution, it involves bureaucratic, procedural, planning, authorization and tendering times for the works. “With this timing – he concludes – how can we ever imagine spending all the resources of the PNRR by 2026?”.
This article is originally published on lavoripubblici.it
