Sicily in balance: restored accounts, waiting lists and a trail of illegalities

There is a Region that is making peace with the numbers. And a Region where, still, "numerous illegal activities are reported". In the words of the magistrates of the Court of Auditors, who intervened during the inauguration of the judicial year, the classic "lights and shadows" of an administration that has made progress but is still struggling in some sectors: from public companies to healthcare.

Surely, the sky is clearer regarding the budgets. And the regional prosecutor Pino Zingale wanted to expressly emphasize this circumstance, right at the end of his speech: "The long-standing issue of the general accounts of the Sicilian Region – he said – seems to be approaching resolution after various levels of judgment and even the intervention of the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Court, with a substantial recovery of the regional public finances, a circumstance that seems to have also contributed – he added – to a calming of the sometimes excessively and mutually conflicting relations between the active administration and control."

Soon, in fact, it is read in the report of the president of the Control Section and the united Sections, Maria Rachele Anita Aronica, the ordinance to convene the meeting on the topic of waiting lists and the management of the pandemic will be issued. On December 29th, the judge Aronica recalls, "the draft report was approved," aimed at the "debate with the regional administration and with the provincial, hospital, and university health companies."

It will actually be a new chapter in a series of in-depth analyses by the Control Section on various activities – both old and new – of the Sicilian Region. And which in the past had not failed to spark some institutional controversy, igniting some tension, in short, between Palazzo d'Orleans and the offices on via Notarbartolo.

Aronica, in fact, refers for example to the report on the “waste management cycle” and in particular to the delays in the approval of the Regional Waste Plan. An investigation, to be honest, that has scrutinized interventions in the sector since 1999, noting "the constant intervention of the State in an emergency manner."

Then came the moment of the dossier on the water emergency, initiated in 2024 and whose draft was approved last August: the spotlight is also on the “infrastructural deficiencies, which make the water cycle management inefficient, with repercussions on the economy linked to the agricultural sector."

Regarding the investigation into the management of “Agrigento capital of culture”, the Court, Aronica recalls in the report, essentially acknowledges, albeit without naming it, Governor Renato Schifani for having favored, with the appointment of former prefect Maria Teresa Cucinotta, a "progressive improvement of the management framework despite the significant initial delays."

Then it was the turn of the Covid expenses, an investigation that in some way “launches” the ongoing investigation into healthcare during the pandemic and the waiting lists, indeed.

And precisely on the problems of Healthcare, Aronica had already intervened to emphasize the "most frequent critical issues", including "the late approval of budgets, exceeding spending limits for flexible personnel, the worsening of Lea scores (Essential Levels of Assistance)", as well as "the increasing passive mobility with increased costs for the Region" and "the failure to meet maximum waiting times for healthcare services."

Shortly before, Prosecutor Zingale had shone a light on another sector of the regional administration: "Both in terms of investigations initiated and judgments filed, there continues to be, as in previous years – he said – a significant number of illegal activities within the varied world of regional entities, including public companies, which at both the regional and local levels in many cases represent one of the main causes determining the criticality of the entire financial management of the public shareholder and the stability of the accounts."

And speaking of illegal activities, the inauguration ceremony, opened by the speech of the president of the jurisdictional section, Anna Luisa Carra, who wanted to remember the citizens of Niscemi "to whom our thoughts and closeness go, as well as that of all institutions," was an opportunity to provide the numbers related to bad Sicilian management.

Only for the ordinary rite of administrative responsibility judgments, it is read in the report of Judge Carra, 96 sentences have been issued against 238 defendants: of these, 62 convictions, 15 acquittals, and 19 with other formulas. The total amount of the convictions amounts to over 11.3 million, to which another half a million for other types of responsibility should be added.

As for the proceedings still ongoing, in 2025 alone, 167 people were sued by the Regional Prosecutor of the Court of Auditors for a total damage approaching 17 million euros, contested in the 88 citations filed.

But in the meantime, the calm returns to the budgets and accounts of the Region.