Auditing operation No. 04/36
Funds for programmes relating to the protection against flood
The auditing operation was included in the Annual Audit Plan of the Supreme Audit Office (hereinafter referred to as „SAO“) for the year 2004 under No. 04/36. The auditing operation was managed and audit conclusion drawn up by Mr Zdeněk Brandt, the Member of the SAO.
The aim of the audit was to examine the management of the State Budget funds earmarked from State Budget for the protection against flood.
The audited period covered the years 1999 to 2003 as well as previous periods in case of relevant connections.
The audited bodies were the Ministry of Agriculture (hereinafter referred to as „MA“), the Ministry of Finance, the Agricultural Water Management Authority (up till 31 December 2000 the State Melioration Authority), the Labe River Board, state enterprise, the Morava River Board, state enterprise, the Odra River Board, state enterprise, the Ohře River Board, state enterprise, and the Vltava River Board, state enterprise.
Audit of the use of funds earmarked in the State Budget for anti-flood measures found that the shortcomings already detected by the SAO still persisted, such as laxity in compliance with the relevant legislation by the MA when preparing programme documentation. Even before the Programme documentation required by law was approved, over CZK 776 million were spent on various actions.
The MA does not perform rigorous supervision of the preparation and implementation of individual actions as part of anti-flood measures. The final evaluation of completed actions was not performed until several years after completion. For the audited period, the MA performed audits of 2.85 % of the actions that were completed and for which final evaluations were demanded.
The audit detected that the approval process takes a disproportionate length of time at the MA and that funds earmarked for financing events in a given year are not released until the 4th quarter of the year in question, when the climate conditions make it difficult to implement the planned actions.
The audit proved that records of spent State Budget funds had been distorted in the ISPROFIN records, because other programmes’ resources were used to additionally fund certain actions in the programme of the protection against flood and these resources were identified in ISPROFIN as the investor’s own funds. Consequently, these records are erroneous and their completion with the prescribed data and their subsequent use is merely formal.