SAO audited funds spent on anti-flood measures and on prevention in areas endangered by adverse climate changes
Press Release – June 1, 2010
From August 2009 to March 2010, auditors from the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) performed an audit of the state budget funds spent on anti-flood measures and prevention in areas endangered by adverse climate changes. Auditors scrutinized the property’s acquisition, modernisation, and reconstruction as well as the implementation of the anti-flood measures within the period 2004–2008.
Among the audited bodies were the Ministry of Environment (as the administrator of the programmes) and Czech Hydrometeorological Institute; Czech Geological Survey; T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, and the association of municipalities in Northen Bohemia; the statutary towns of Brno, Děčín, Ústí nad Labem, and Ostrava; the towns of Český Krumlov, Vsetín, and Ledeč nad Sázavou; the municipalities of Hřensko, Dolní Lutyně, Soběšovice, and Větřní.
In reaction to the disastrous floods of years 1997 and 1998, a conceptual strategy of anti-flood prevention measures in the Czech Republic (the Strategy) was elaborated by the Ministry of Environment. The Strategy was not reviewed from 2003 till the end of the SAO auditing operation. This situation was partly caused by the fact that the Ministry had not set measurable goals that could influence the existing principles and priorities of the Strategy.
“In April 2003, the Ministry submitted an assessment of the Strategy and its achievements. According to the submitted materials, it was not necessary to adjust the previously set goals. However, the Strategy did not reflect the flood analyses or the evaluation of implemented programmes and no adjustments to the anti-flood prevention priorities were included“, said president of the SAO František Dohnal.
The goals were set improperly and were not factual. It was not possible to measure the achieved goals and an effective assessment of the audited programmes was hard to produce. Final assessments usually omitted analyses of the achieved goals and cost effectiveness regarding the state budget. In violation of the programme financing principles, Czech Hydrometeorological Institute utilized the state budget funds for assistance toward operations because of the generalized definitions of the programme goals.
“Auditors have repeatedly pointed out to flaws of the funding systems mainly caused by poor definitions of the programmes’ objectives. Consequently, insufficiencies of the programmes’ final reports were found and the programmes were assessed only as a matter of form. Such a state deepens the acute need for effective allocations of public funds“, said Dohnal.
The auditing operation was included into 2009 Audit Plan of the SAO under No. 09/20. Petr Skála, Member of the SAO Board, controlled the operation and prepared the audit conclusion as well.