L’equilibrio instabile delle società partecipate pubbliche tra insolvenza genetica e ricapitalizzazioni per perdite: le responsabilità dei sistemi contabili

A recent research of the Italian Corte dei Conti has shown as most local government owned companies are not a going concern on their own. They are often unable to reach the economic break even and their continuity depends on shareholders’ ability to periodically pay in new fresh capital. But while the urgency of new capital is normally largely announced by the accounting losses reported in the annual financial statements, the needed resources are seldom appropriately budgeted. The recent history of Italian public administration is replete with examples of “extraordinary” financial operations designed to “save” those companies from bankruptcy so to avoid the interruption of essential public services. Such operations, that seldom have tackled the roots of the insolvency, have often been carried out in full violation of Italian and European financial regulations, especially as far a the stability and growth pact is concerned. Their unique effect was in most cases letting these companies surviving a bit longer and, therefore, to accumulate more debts till the next “extraordinary” salvage operation. But, as the recent financial crisis is proving, public recourses are not never-ending and when the shareholders have stopped paying in new capital the insolvency that has emerged had been deepened by years of presumed “imperishability”. This paper shows as the communication difficulties between the financial based accounting system of the shareholder and the accrual based accounting system of the owned company helps to conceal the economic distress of the latter up until its insolvency becomes self-evident. The paper also tries to pinpoint at some reporting solutions to increase the dialogue between the two different accounting systems.