The Ministry of Health corrected significant accounting and budgetary shortcomings. Due to its inactivity it paid at least CZK 3.6 million on enforcements
Press release on audit No 21/24 – 5 September 2022
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) examined the data of the closing account, the keeping of accounts and the preparation of the 2021 accounts of the Ministry of Health (MoH). The auditors also focused on the data submitted by the MoH to assess the implementation of the State budget. The Ministry’s closing account was free from material misstatements. The audit took place in the open accounting year 2021. The MoH therefore corrected shortcomings as they were identified by the auditors.
The value of corrected accounting entries was CZK 11 billion (of which CZK 9.6 billion was the correction of contingent transfer liabilities) and the value of the corrections in the budget classification, in particular the correction of incorrectly classified expenditure on transfers granted to municipal and regional hospitals, amounted to CZK 4 billion. Following these corrections, the Ministry of Health prepared financial statements, which, in the opinion of the SAO, gave a true and fair view of the subject of accounting and submitted data for the evaluation of the implementation of the State budget for 2021, which the SAO considers to be reliable. The MoH has fully implemented the measures taken to remedy the shortcomings found during the previous SAO audit.
The auditors found that the MoH had paid at least CZK 3.6 million in enforcements because it failed to comply with the obligations imposed by the Court in relation to Act No 106/1999 on freedom of access to information. Although the MoH is a mandatory entity with an obligation to provide information related to the Ministry’s scope of authority, in several cases it has not done so repeatedly and over a long period of time. In so doing, it triggered four enforcement proceedings. Thus, the MoH did not fulfil certain tasks in the most cost-effective manner, although it is obliged to do so.
Reliability of accounts after accounting corrections
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office