I argue it's not the case. Over-bureaucracy (ironically, to fight "corruption", like the useless "anti-corruption authority") is one of the major reasons things get done at glacial paces (and the same reason sometimes people use "other ways" to speed up things). The replacement of Ponte Morandi in Genova is a prime example of this fact: to rebuild it lots of "rules" had to be suspended.
Data in 2018's report "Tempi di realizzazione delle opere pubbliche" [0] seems to contradict this. The 7th post in this [1] twitter thread summarizes it.
[0] https://www.agenziacoesione.gov.it/news_istituzionali/tempi-... [1] https://twitter.com/CarloStagnaro/status/1280401691997876227
Edit: added post number.
> Seconda domanda: da cosa dipendono allora le lungaggini, se non dall’affidamento? La risposta è esattamente quella che state pensando: dalla burocrazia.
"Second question: what is the cause of slowness, if not when a work is actually given [to whoever got the contract]? The answer is exactly what you're thinking about: bureaucracy."
The next few tweets bring data which supports this.