Funds Drawn for Publishing Activities of the State Budget Chapters’ Administrators
Press release on completion of the auditing operation No. 06/09
The auditing operation was included in the Annual Audit Plan of the Supreme Audit Office (hereinafter referred to as “SAO”) for the year 2006 under No. 06/09. The auditing operation was managed and the audit conclusion drawn up by Mrs. Eliška Kadaňová, the Member of the SAO.
The auditing operation was focused on the State Budget funds used for publications issued by selected state budget chapters’ administrators (seven ministries and three other central authorities) during the 2004-2005 period. The audit aim was to examine legality and regularity of financial transactions connected with publishing activities of the governmental bodies. The state authorities have also obligation to appropriately publish information about their activities and important measures. Such an obligation is even explicitly laid down in a number of legal regulations; they usually require disclosing certain data or issuing some kind of periodical newsletter. Thus, the printed materials for public audience and the traceable costs expended on them were audited. The traceable costs were in principle expenditures paid for external services.
Some of audited offices had only insufficient overview about publications that they issued and about their costs. In certain cases, they failed to verify whether they were publishing all materials in compliance with regulations, entrusted remit, and economy of the releasing method.
Attitudes and concrete publishing activities significantly varied among audited offices. Some offices issued only a few publications and their content was related to the remit of the office in question. Other offices issued a wide scale of printed materials including legal regulations, professional texts, maps, photo collections, and even fiction. As far as technology is concerned, audited entities issued books, brochures, magazines, textbooks, compact discs and also presentable books and calendars. The Ministry of Defence issued the most miscellaneous publications during audited period.
The ten audited offices issued yearly over 300 publications in 2004 – 2005 period; the Ministry of Defence published about half of this amount and the Ministry of Interior a quarter. The traceable costs expended on the audited publications amounted to in total CZK 349 million in reviewed years. Paid subscription was applied only in a few cases, among others at the Collection of Laws and the Collection of International Agreements. The income received by selling Collections is revenue of the organization subsidized by the Ministry of Interior and it is used for financing of the Collections preparation and production. The other revenues from publishing activities of the audited offices amounted to approximately CZK 21 million during reviewed period.
Therefore, the SAO recommends adopting a number of remedy actions on the basis of the performed auditing operation.