The SAO audited 2013 closing account of the Ministry of Agriculture
PRESS RELEASE on Audit No. 13/38 – September 15, 2014
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) aimed at the Ministry of Agriculture and its accounting processes performed in 2013, including compiling of financial statements for the accounting period, and scrutinized whether the Ministry’s 2013 closing account had been compiled in conformity with relevant legal regulations.
In 2013 final statements of the Ministry, auditors revealed errors in the total amount of CZK 14.3 million. The maximum allowable ratio of bad records in the final accounts1 was determined to CZK 1,000 million. Thus the total amount of revealed bad records in the final statements was not considered to be weighty.
The SAO cannot assess the reliability of the data included into the Ministry’s 2013 final accounts as the legal regulations applicable for the State organisational units’ accounting sometimes contain ambiguous and unclear stipulations. The SAO has repeatedly warned of this situation in its previous audit reports. At the Ministry of Agriculture, the impact of the legal regulations’ ambiguity was calculated to be CZK 64,000 million in 2013, which exceeded the maximum allowable ratio of bad records by 64 times. As a result, the assessment of the data in the final statements as for their reliability was significantly limited. The accounting unit, i. e. the Ministry, cannot be accused for the ambiguity of legal regulations and unclear stipulations.
Auditors also revealed that the Ministry’s 2013 closing account included factual errors and incomplete data; the same errors had been found during the previous auditing operation aimed at the State budget heading “Ministry of Agriculture”.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office
1) The maximum allowable ratio of bad records expresses a sum, which may affect economic decisions taken by the users of the closing account, either by individual items or in the summary.