The Measurement of Corruption Risk in Procurement

Although corruption represents one of the main obstacles to economic, political, and social development, it is a latent phenomenon and, therefore, difficult to measure. Indeed, the corruptive phenomenon can be compared to an iceberg of which only the tip is visible, despite the submerged part being much larger than it appears. The present work focuses on the system of corruption risk indicators present in the ANAC portal, particularly those related to the procurement sector, highlighting possible future developments in relation also to technological innovation stemming from the increasing use of large data sets, the implementation of the PNRR, and the provisions of the new public contracts code, including the digitalization of the procurement lifecycle. These indicators can be considered as warning bells signaling potentially anomalous situations. They allow to have a picture of territorial contexts more or less exposed to corruptive phenomena on which to invest in terms of prevention and/or investigation. They can also direct the attention of civil society and increase civic participation. Based on an increasingly important and substantial body of scientific studies, ANAC has in particular identified 17 indicators that, in various ways, identify aspects highlighting potential corruptive phenomena in the context of public procurement, thus signaling the risk of corruption in every Italian province. The portal allows for the calculation of synthesis indicators according to different risk thresholds, obtained by condensing the information coming from all or part of the 17 indicators. For each of the selected indicators, in fact, it is possible to highlight the provinces whose value exceeds a given percentage of the provinces with a less risky value.