The SAO scrutinized 2012 auxiliary analytical overview submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade
Press Release – December 30, 2013
The Supreme Audit Office scrutinized the Ministry of Industry and Trade and focused on its 2012 auxiliary analytical overview and its compliance with the applicable legal regulations.
Effective from 2012, the auxiliary analytical overview (AAO) is a new accounting overview, which must be assembled by specified accounting units. Data put into the AAO must be based on the unit’s accounting. The AAO is submitted by accounting entities into the state central accounting information system.
The data in the AAO are used for the purposes of monitoring and managing public finances and are used to predict the state budget deficit and to provide details on accounting data and is intended especially for processing data that are submitted by the Czech Statistical Office to the European Commission or Eurostat. The quality of the data in the AAO is crucial.
As the AAO is based in particular on accounting data, the accuracy of this data is dependent on the accuracy of the accounting. The SAO revealed that inaccuracies totalling to CZK 89,000 million stemming from violations of legal regulations appeared in the AAO submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade for the year 2012.
The lack of clarity in the application of accounting regulations had the most significant impact on assessing the correctness of the data. Therefore, it was not possible to assess the accuracy of data referring to the total amount of CZK 168,000 million.
It is not only the accounting entities who are to blame for problems and shortcomings in the AAO. Submission of the AAO has become a new obligation for certain accounting entities as of 1 January 2012 under Decree No. 383/2009 Sb., which was published as late as on December 28, 2011. The entities only had four (!) days to submit the finished AAO and perform the necessary organisational changes and technical amendments. The process of creating the AAO is defined in a non-binding document issued by the Ministry of Finance. In the SAO’s opinion, the manner in which the methodology was issued by the Ministry of Finance is a system problem, as this methodology cannot be considered as legally binding.
For further details about auditing operation No. 13/11 (in Czech only), see the following link: http://www.nku.cz/assets/media/informace-13-11.pdf.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office