Auditing operation No. 04/13
State Budget funds provided for the programme The support and the optimisation of the regional healthcare facilities network
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. 04/13. The auditing operation was managed and audit conclusion drawn up by Mr. Rudolf Němeček, the Member of the SAO.
The aim of the audit was to examine the provisioning, the withdrawal and the utilisation of the State Budget funds earmarked for the programme The support and the optimisation of the regional healthcare facilities network.
The audited period covered the years 2001 to 2003 as well as previous periods in case of relevant connections.
The audited bodies were the Ministry of Health (hereinafter referred to as “MH”) – the programme administrator, and selected programme participants.
Under the programme financing the replacement of healthcare assets existing property was renovated, new buildings erected and their technical fittings modernised. Insufficient preparation of project documentation led to frequent changes to the projects; in most of the cases scrutinised completion deadlines were extended during implementation of the actions, which led to increased costs. State Budget funds were also used for actions that have so far failed to fulfil their purpose, as they are still in the building preparation stage or the planned bed capacity has not been created. Some of the State Budget funds are irrevocably lost, because unnecessary buildings are being built.
In some cases, the programme administrator:
- Issued decisions on State Budget participation in financing an action based on incomplete information provided by the investor;
- Failed to react to the fact that investors did not submit final evaluations of actions;
- Failed to check the data contained in the documentation of the final evaluation of actions and has insufficient knowledge of investment actions included in Programme 335 210.
Given the absence of documentation for Programme 335 210 it is not possible to evaluate the implementation of the programme and achievement of the specified goals.
The programme participants:
- Breached the binding indicators specified in the Decisions, chiefly by
- Using State Budget funds uneconomically,
- Failure to comply with the implementation parameters and deadlines,
- Failure to submit documentation of the final evaluation of actions to the programme administrator;
- Did not proceed in accordance with the provisions of Act No. 199/1994 Coll., on public procurement, chiefly by
- Not always selecting the most suitable bid that satisfied the criteria defined in the public tender’s terms of reference,
- Selecting contractors on the basis of unsuitably defined criteria for evaluating bids,
- Failing to define the bid price as the highest admissible price,
- Raising contractual prices during the implementation of actions;
- Did not proceed in accordance with the provisions of the act on accounting, chiefly by
- Incorrectly accounting for completed investments,
- Providing higher advance payments than permitted by the rules;
- Did not comply with budgetary best practice by wrongfully using State Budget funds.
The programme-based financing of the replacement of healthcare property in the regions, as it was conceived in the audited period, was characterised by a lack of conceptuality with elements of randomness.