Operational Programme Research and Development for Innovations without cardinal errors
Press Release – July 15, 2013
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) audited Operational Programme Research and Development for Innovations and focused on administration of priority axes 1 and 2 within period 2009-2012. Auditors scrutinized the programme´s setting, the assessment and selection processes, and monitoring of the projects. Individual projects worth CZK 4,800 million were audited.
For the assessment phase, the Ministry of Education failed to assure a sufficient level of impartiality as one expert was among selection committee members and at the same time, the expert cooperated during the assessment criteria setting and authorization processes. The Ministry also failed to fulfil some of their archiving duties as there were no records taken during non-standard meetings of applicants and evaluators. Such meetings usually influenced the outcomes of the project assessments. With three projects, auditors found some negative comments about applications, which got positive assessments in the end.
The Ministry of Education made errors in the administrative control of expenses, which were accounted for by the beneficiaries. Violations of budgetary rules in the amount of CZK 1 million were found with the audited projects. The violation with the highest value (CZK 535,000) was generated when a beneficiary accounted for expenses on the basis of a framework agreement with a supplier, whose offer should have been excluded from the tender. Auditors found errors in the verifying processes, which have aimed at eligibility of payments to some project realisation team members. As a consequence, some project expenses exceeded local cost standards.
Errors were revealed with the beneficiaries as well, namely in the selection of suppliers and the eligibility of costs. The SAO auditors believe that the found errors caused violation of the budgetary rules in the amount of CZK 1.3 million. On the grounds of the audit findings, respective financial authorities were notified of all suspicious cases, which could be indicative of violations of budgetary rules.
In spite of errors revealed during the auditing operation, the SAO considers auditing and monitoring systems of the operational programme as working well and efficiently. The found errors do not mean any risk for utilization of the funds, which were allocated to this operational programme.
For further details about auditing operation No. 12/21 (in Czech only), see the following link: http://www.nku.cz/assets/media/informace-12-21.pdf (338 kB).
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office