The SAO audited funds earmarked for the direct payments
Press Release – November 25, 2013
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) scrutinized the system of direct payments and its functioning, the administration and control over applications, and providing of subsidies. The audited bodies were the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Intervention Fund. Auditors selected 58 beneficiaries and focused on their adherence to legal regulations and conditions defined for awarding the subsidies. The total amount of scrutinized expenses from the State budget and from EU funds exceeded CZK 370 million, which was roughly 1.7 % of the total amount of direct payments paid in 2012.
Auditors revealed that the Ministry of Agriculture failed to minimize the chance to obtain subsidies for applicants who did not entirely occupy themselves with agricultural activities or who only pursued agricultural activities at minimum. In 2012, direct payments were also provided to subjects, whose business activities were not specifically aimed at the agriculture. (For example, among the beneficiaries were golf centres and specialized secondary schools.)
The audit report concluded that the Ministry of Agriculture did not consistently adhere to the act on financial supervision, namely in terms of the provisional managing control and risk management fields.
Errors were found in the area of the register of agricultural lands´ utilization. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture violated the act on agriculture when the agricultural lands registration system omitted the information about existing irrigation systems developed on the applicant´s lands.
In general, the SAO found the system of direct payments´ implementation and administration within the audited period as functioning and efficient in spite there were several errors, namely in the area of the register of agricultural lands´ utilization. The auditors concluded that it was necessary to ensure:
- improvements to the information system on agricultural lands´ utilization (LPIS),
- harmonisation of the register of landscape features with the EU legislation, and
- changes to the Ministry´s sanctioning policy as for the reporting duty that users have when the information about lands change.
For further details about auditing operation No. 13/03 (in Czech only), see the following link: http://www.nku.cz/assets/media/informace-13-03.pdf (pdf 401 kB).
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office