The SAO audited anti-drug policy projects; no fundamental errors revealed
Press Release – June 10, 2013
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) performed an audit of funds provided by the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health to anti-drug policy projects implemented within the period 2010–2011. Auditors selected 49 individual projects and scrutinized the beneficiaries. In 2010 and 2011, state budget funds in the amount of CZK 1,200 million were spent on anti-drug policy projects. At the Office of the Government of the CR and the ministries, the auditors aimed at provided funds in the amount of CZK 124.5 million. At the beneficiaries, the auditors scrutinized funds in the amount of CZK 51.2 million.
Auditors concluded that the funds had been utilized economically. Errors were found only with four of 49 audited projects, but the found errors were only minor ones, for example mistakes in accounting or exceeded limitation of wage outlays.
Auditors criticized the Office of the Government of the CR, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health for failure to control beneficiaries. In 2010 and in 2011, both Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health performed only one public administration control, while the Office of the Government of the CR performed eleven controls. In 2011, the public administration control was left out of the binding regulations related to allowances.
The ministries failed to timely announce a list of successful projects that had been chosen for implementation. In 2011, the Ministry of Health Resort failed to determine the actual amounts of allowances with individual projects by the end of February. The allowance amounts were set as late as in May that year.
In May 2010, the Government ratified National Anti-drug Strategy for the period 2010–2018, which included four main goals. The goals’ accomplishment was split up into three operative plans. Operative Plan No. 1 for the period 2010–2012 included 185 individual tasks. Most tasks counted among monitoring, research, and evaluation processes (88.8 %), the least tasks counted among health care and social inclusion (38.7 %) and alcohol and smoking prevention (25 %). In general, the Government failed to meet the strategic goals. The Czech Republic has the highest number of cannabis consumers in Europe and the number of problematic drug and injection drug users increased as well.
For further details about auditing operation No. 12/25 (in Czech only), see the following link: http://www.nku.cz/assets/media/informace-12-25.pdf (pdf 307 kB).
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office