The Ministry of Health did not have significant misstatements in the closing account and the financial statement
Press release to audit No. 18/13 - 11 March 2019
The Ministry of Health did not have significant misstatements in the closing account and the financial statement. But some information in the financial statements was found to be unreliable
The Supreme Audit Office examined data from the closing account of the state budget chapter of the Ministry of Health (MoH), the accounting and the preparation of financial statements for 2017. Auditors also focused on the figures given in 2017 by the MoH for assessing the implementation of the state budget. A financial statement is drawn up from these figures. No significant misstatements were found in the closing account and the financial statement. In the financial statements, the SAO detected irregularities for CZK 3.2 billion. The SAO also reviewed how the errors detected in the previous audit had been corrected by the MoH. According to the SAO, the measures taken by the MoH were sufficient.
Most irregularities concerned misreported contingent liabilities, which related to transfers, as well as the non-recognition of contingent claims from transfer pre-financing in the annex to the financial statements. The MoH also made mistakes in the statement of changes in equity in which it had incorrectly adjusted the algorithm for calculating some items. These data were therefore unreliable.
However, misstatements found in other financial statements were not significant, the SAO has therefore evaluated the data contained in these statements as reliable. In the opinion of the SAO, the financial statements of the MoH in 2017 give a true and fair view of the subject of the accounting, except for the aforementioned misstatements.
Auditors also found weaknesses in the internal control system which had a negative impact on the completeness and relevance of the accounting, on the reliability of the accounting, and on compliance with legal obligations. For example, in 2017, the Ministry did not conclude a contract for the provision of legal services in writing, even though it was obliged to publish it in the Register of Contracts. On the basis of this not published contract, the MoH, however, was accepting services for which it was making payments. In this way, it had paid over CZK 7 million without an effective contract. By acting so, the MoH had violated the Act on the Register of Contracts and the Act on Budgetary Rules. As a consequence, the SAO submitted a breach of budgetary discipline to the Financial Office. At the same time, auditors found that certain legal services contracts from previous years had got lost.
Reliability of the financial statements by individual statements
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office