BARI – «It is not at all unreasonable or illogical» the choice with which the Foggia Local Health Authority canceled the 60 million euro maxi-contract for the air rescue, which saw the Alidaunia company as the only competitor: the same one which, according to an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office Foggia, would have “approached” the consultant responsible for preparing the specifications. This was established by the Bari Regional Administrative Court, rejecting the appeal presented by the Foggia company and its request for compensation for damages.
The case exploded after the intervention of the Anac which in April 2023 induced the prefect of Foggia, Maurizio Valiante, to order the application of extraordinary anti-corruption measures against Alidaunia (which had already ceased at the end of 2023). In October the ASL canceled the tender, one of the most important in the sector in Europe, noting on the one hand its “uselessness”, on the other the risk that it could have been tailor-made for whoever was supposed to win it. In fact, it emerges from the documents of the Prosecutor’s Office that the tender was prepared with the specialist consultancy of a company from Naples, Amesco, whose director appears to have had contacts with the then owner of Alidaunia, Roberto Pucillo, and with his daughter Roberta (both on trial for a similar matter).
The TAR (Second Section, president Serlenga, drafter Testini) limited itself to observing that, in fact, the economic motivation alone is more than sufficient to cancel the tender. The ASL has in fact demonstrated that the current single helicopter is enough to guarantee coverage (a service managed in extension by Alidaunia itself), and that a second one is not needed because in the summer of 2021-2022 (when another one had been planned) the two helicopters were used together a few times: in the summer of 2023 (there is a peak in calls in the summer, due to tourism) the 118 worked without problems thanks to the introduction (definitely less expensive) of sea rescue. «The revocation – it is written in the sentence – is not based at all on the absence of the simultaneous use of the two helicopters in the 2022 summer season, but on the observation that “the helicopter rescue service operating all year round 24 hours a day adequately guarantees the provincial needs, even in the summertime””. The administrative judges also said that Alidaunia is not entitled to compensation for damages, because given the long silence of the ASL after the communication of the first tender session (July 2022) the company should not have renewed the guarantee for which it is now requesting reimbursement: «Professional diligence would have required, in the face of a procedure that has been stopped for a long time, not to face further disbursements before having obtained information on the actual continuation» of the tender.
The ASL with the general director Antonio Nigri has therefore secured an important cost saving in favor of the national health fund. The Region has long announced that the management of the new helicopter rescue contract will be entrusted to InnovaPuglia with the consultancy of Aeroporti, to identify a service extended to the entire region: the new tender will probably be split into two territorial lots.
A parallel civil proceeding is also open on the dispute (before the Court of Bari, business section) in which Alidaunia is asking the Foggia Local Health Authority for 5 million in damages, of which 2 million for having leased the two helicopters necessary to provide the service and 2 .7 million for business profit. The ASL (with the lawyer Raffaele D’Aloiso) obviously opposes it, noting that the tender required the availability of the helicopters within 180 days of signing the contract, and that the advance purchase «could only make sense if the actress had been able to predict the awarding of the tender in his favor even before its celebration, which is evidently impossible”. And above all by pointing out that the two helicopters for which Alidaunia is requesting compensation were leased a year before the tender was called, and that since May 2022 they have been used to provide the helicopter rescue service to the Campania Region.
