SAO audited funds earmarked for housing support programmes
Press Release – September 14, 2010
From October 2009 to May 2010, auditors from the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) performed an audit of housing support programmes, which had been implemented by Ministry for Regional Development and funded by State Fund for Housing Support. The Ministry and the Fund allotted CZK 16 milliard for the support programmes within the period from 2006–2009. Auditors selected 21 recipients and 30 activities that had been supported with total amount of CZK 422.6 million.
“The Ministry submitted a definition of primary objectives and strategic instruments of the support, which failed to specify the desirable accomplishments. The Ministry poorly coordinated the activities and insufficiently evaluated achievements of the support that other ministries had provided. The whole information on the allotted funds was only extracted from publicly available sources. There were no official data on the financial support provided by the State Fund for Housing Support“, said president of the SAO František Dohnal.
The Fund has not created sources for long-term housing support programmes thus failed to perform one of its substantial functions. Funds earned in 2000 from the privatisation have mostly been utilized for non-repayable subsidies. From 2011, the support will be funded from the sate budget, which contradicts the ideas that had originally led to the Fund’s establishing.
“The support programmes originally aimed at motivating some population groups to realize affordable housing. Indicators for evaluation of the support’s effectiveness or the impact on the supported groups were not explicitly set and the programmes only defined technical parameters (e. g. number of procured housing units). The Ministry or the Fund had not created effective instruments to determinate whether the supported groups were actually using the procured houses“, said Dohnal.
The support programmes lacked transparent regulations and rules were often altered. Out of 14 relating Government decrees, 10 got amended. The Ministry frequently rendered in favour of the recipients and selected activities for support according to non-transparent indicators.
From 2006 to 2009, the Ministry spent one third of the allotted funds that amounted to CZK 423.7 million to pay administration fees in mortgage banks. Out of 21 audited recipients, 7 incorrectly placed and carried out the public orders and misused the procured houses.
The auditing operation was included into 2009 Audit Plan of the SAO under No. 09/24. Rudolf Němeček, Member of the SAO Board, controlled the operation and prepared the audit conclusion as well.
Mgr. Bc. Radka Burketová
Press Speaker
Supreme Audit Office