Campania routes its health service purchases through a single company to spend less and control more. Its chairman is in prison, accused of corruption over two tenders
10 November 2026, 16:13
On 10 November, in Naples, the judge for preliminary investigations sent to prison the chairman of Soresa, the Campania Region's company that buys goods and services for hospitals and local health authorities. According to the charges brought by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate, he allegedly took €100,000 in connection with a €23.8 million tender for the hire of stretchers for Campania's hospitals, intervening on the technical scores of the bids, and the favoured company then reportedly won the Salerno and Avellino lots. Nobody, so far, has been convicted. Since 2024, bids in public tenders can only be submitted through digital platforms; the envelope with the money, on 30 April 2026, the businessman allegedly delivered in person instead, to the chairman's home.
The same group of businessmen won the waste collection contract for Somma Vesuviana, worth €29.6 million, on 15 December 2025. A municipal official allegedly passed them drafts of the tender documents before publication, so that they could tailor the requirements to themselves, and the chairman of the purchasing body allegedly passed on to the evaluation panel the scores to give each bid. The tender notice, which ought to reach every bidder at the same moment, somebody reportedly had in advance; the Christmas parcel containing €20,000, on the other hand, allegedly arrived on 23 December, once the tender was already closed.
A central purchasing body serves two purposes: if a single office buys instead of dozens of health authorities, prices fall because it buys in bulk, and checks cost less because the procedures are few and all in one place. In Campania that office is Soresa, which in the first ten months of 2024, according to its business plan, put out to tender supplies and services worth €5.1 billion, paid for from the regional health fund, in other words with Campania's taxes. That is precisely its weakness, because the reason it suits the Region is the same reason it suits anyone who wants to win: to steer billions in contracts, it is enough to win over a handful of people.
The stretchers are hired with that fund, and the waste collection is paid for through the TARI waste tax by the families of Somma Vesuviana, who had no say over the winner and will pay for the service all the same, year after year. Together the two tenders are worth more than €53 million; to steer them, a total of €250,000 was allegedly agreed between the chairman, the municipal official and an official in charge of the award, less than five euros for every thousand of the contract value: the most generous discount in either procedure.
To make this trade harder, the 2016 public procurement code had provided for a national register held by the Anti-Corruption Authority, from which the members of tender panels would be drawn by lot from experts outside the purchasing body. The draw was suspended in 2019 and the 2023 code did not bring it back: today the panel members are appointed by the body that launches the tender, as a rule from among its own staff. The panel, in short, stays in house, just like the stretcher envelope.
The Region has called a shareholders' meeting to replace Soresa's top management and promises a "clean break" from the arrangements decided in 2022: the people will change, while those who judge the bids will still be chosen by the company.
This article was prompted by a news item published in Il Fatto Quotidiano on 10 November 2026.