Agrigento, the Italian Capital of Culture for 2025, splashed €510,000 in just a few hours to look its best ahead of the visit of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella earlier this month.

Evidently, the time period was too narrow to avoid covering the manholes with the bitumen. Two days after the ceremony, the workers returned to the newly resurfaced roads in search of the lost manholes. And to find them, they used a metal detector, scanning the brand-new road surface centimetre after centimetre.

Now, the regional president Giovanni Petrone has commissioned the lawyer Bruno Messina, regional vice president of the association, to present a complaint to the Court of Auditors in order to ascertain any tax damages.

He said: “We are faced with episodes that highlight several critical issues in the realisation of public works, and that risk being configured as a waste of public resources and a violation of the rules on safety. In fact, from the reports received, it would seem that with the asphalt having been used to cover manholes and part of the drain grids, a lot of work will be required to avoid problems during the next rains.”