State equity interests are not managed in accordance with the rules set out by the government itself. Seven of the 21 measures have remained solely on paper.
PRESS RELEASE ON AUDIT NO 25/03 – 20 April 2026
Ministries are not managing their equity interests in commercial companies in accordance with the State Ownership Policy Strategy (Strategie vlastnické politiky státu in Czech; hereafter the Strategy). The government approved this Strategy in 2020 in response to an earlier audit by the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) from 2015, with the aim of ensuring transparent and effective exercise of ownership rights. According to the SAO, the Ministries failed to implement seven of the 21 measures. The Strategy’s design itself was also problematic, which became evident from the SAO’s audit focusing on the procedures of the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).
For example, the audited Ministries did not establish qualification criteria for members of the supervisory boards of commercial companies. Moreover, neither the MoF nor the MoIT ensured that the strategic commercial companies under their purview published information in accordance with legal regulations, such as the Act on Accounting or the Act on Free Access to Information.
The MoF assessed the benefits of equity holdings solely based on dividend revenue from the companies. This approach, however, conflicts with the Strategy, according to which the state does not own strategic companies primarily for the purpose of generating dividend revenue. The highest dividend was paid by ČEZ, a. s., a public limited company, which accounted for 85% of the total dividend revenue.
Nevertheless, the Ministries informed the MoF each year that they were complying with the set-out measures. The MoF subsequently confirmed the implementation of the aforementioned measures regarding the Strategy’s fulfilment in its reports to the government, though according to the SAO, in many cases, this did not reflect the reality.
Furthermore, the SAO found that the issue did not merely lie in the actions of the Ministries, but also in the strategy itself. The MoF formulated some of the measures in general terms, without linking them to the Strategy’s objectives, making it unclear what exactly were the Ministries supposed to accomplish. As a result, the Strategy did not create the conditions for effective management of the state’s equity holdings.
The auditors pointed out that the MoF had changed the criteria, thereby allowing the Ministries to label companies as strategic even when they are not of fundamental importance to the state. The state held equity holdings in two commercial companies that it did not need, but that were classified as strategic by the MoF. However, during the audit, the MoF decided to relinquish its stake in one of them due to long-term lack of need.
It is also worth noting that the MoF and the MoIT nominated and subsequently approved deputy ministers as members of supervisory boards. Yet, pursuant to the Act on Conflict of Interest, deputy ministers are not permitted to act as members of supervisory or audit bodies of commercial companies. A similar situation occurred also in reverse – some members of supervisory boards subsequently became deputy ministers without first terminating their membership on the supervisory board.
The SAO therefore recommends that the MoF review the State Ownership Policy Strategy and update its categorisation of commercial companies, including the criteria for their classification. Furthermore, it recommends that the MoF and MoIT review the scope of powers of those supervisory boards in commercial companies that fall under their purview, as the Ministries have vested certain significant powers in them, thus limiting the state’s direct influence over the exercise of its ownership rights.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office