The Supreme Audit Office has audited state property and finances worth CZK 6.3 trillion - this claim was made at the recent Greening SAIs conference
Press release – 5 October 2023
In the three decades of its existence, the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) has carried out 1,113 audits with 12,066 auditees and examined state property and finances worth CZK 6.3 trillion. Its audits have resulted in 683 notifications to tax authorities and 155 criminal charges filed.
These data were also presented to the participants of the recent international conference called Greening SAIs, which took place at the new SAO headquarters in Prague. This conference was also an opportunity to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the SAO. "Our distance, our independence, our insight - that is the strength of our Office. We have the space, we have the time, we have the ability to assess the bottlenecks in the system," said the SAO president, Miloslav Kala. Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who was among the invited guests, added: "I appreciate the fact that the SAO pointed out a number of steps or bad decisions that were formally alright, but on closer inspection did not make sense and required our attention. We should not just passively gloss over these outcomes, but actually work with them."
The conference, which was also attended by the representatives of 12 European supreme audit institutions and the European Court of Auditors as well as representatives of the Czech political and professional scene, including the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Miloš Vystrčil, and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, was dedicated to "green" topics. Examples were given of how the supreme audit institutions in the world approach environmental protection in their audits or in the operation of their Offices.
We are pleased to have been able to present our new environmentally sustainable headquarters to the attendees. A methodology has been used during its construction to reduce the life cycle costs of the building to a minimum. For example, 40 geothermal boreholes are used to heat as well as cool the building. Thanks to this solution, the desired temperature is maintained in the building, at the cost of only running the pumps. This leads to a saving of more than 1 GW of electricity per year. The building has a green roof and is equipped with solar technologies. Guests also had the opportunity to see the new building, including the part belonging to the Parliamentary Library and the Archive of the Chamber of Deputies.
For the first time ever, a new SAO President Award was presented at the conference for an exceptional act in the field of public audit, the impact of which will be appreciated by future generations. The design of the prize came out of a competition among students of the Institute of Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University. The winning design by designer Marie Cikhartová works with the detail of a magnifying glass as a symbol of the exact investigation into the state of public affairs. These emerge in detail, the hidden is revealed and the seemingly invisible emerges into living reality.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office