Unsatisfactory audit results at Ministry of Agriculture
Press Release – September 4, 2007
Czech Republic signed up to realizing the remedies as imposed in the guideline released by the European Community for municipal waste drains purification. The remedies should be accomplished by 2010. The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) performed an audit that aimed at granting, gathering, and using subsidies for several investment ventures of water-conserving and environmental buildings within the competence of Ministry of Agriculture, and checked realization of the corrective measures. The outcomes were found unsatisfactory.
The audited interval ran from 2003 till the end of audit, regarding associated data from the previous period. Audited bodies were Ministry of Agriculture (MA) and various subsidy recipients (See the complete list of audited subsidy recipients enclosed to the audit report.)
In 2000, the government approved an implementation plan, which calculated on definite budgets for each water and wastewater system construction. The plan has been put in more precise terms several times since. “Annually updated finance strategies have postponed realization of most projects until 2008 or 2010. For example, only half of the granted subsidies were spent in 2005. Minister of agriculture is not having documents supporting the presumption that building owners would dispose the necessary competence for co-supporting the projects together with EU funds, which could extend to CZK 11,2 billion, “ said president of SAO, František Dohnal.
“The dates of project finalizing (end of 2006) were not kept in 16 town agglomerations. Remedy projects have been finalized for 2,7 million people, that represents less than three fourths of the population presupposed for the end of 2006. There is a certain risk that Czech Republic will not comply with the guideline commitments in 2010,” said Dohnal.
The auditing operation was included into the 2006 Audit Plan of SAO under No. 06/31. Jan Holeček, Member of the SAO Board, controlled the operation and Jiří Adámek, Member of the SAO Board, drew up the audit report.
Radka Burketová
Press Speaker
CR – Supreme Audit Office