The Ministry of the Environment lacks a compact informational system and still uses 125 separate informational systems and databases

PRESS RELEASE on Audit No. 14/12 – February 16, 2015


The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) scrutinized the Ministry of the Environment, the Czech Environmental Information Agency, and the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and focused on their management with funds utilized in ICT projects in the period 2010–2013.

The Ministry of the Environment procures and monitors “An Integrated Informational System about the Environment”. The System is supposed to acquire, store, and assess data and provide the information about environmental matters. The SAO concluded that at the moment, the System is only a theoretical concept as the Ministry still uses 125 separate informational systems and databases, which are not interconnected or integrated. Besides other things, such a state of matters creates situations when the same data are being repeatedly put in various informational systems and databases, which increases their storage needs as well as the operational costs.

To provide a professional assistance to the development of the Integrated Informational System about the Environment, the Ministry of the Environment established the Council for the System’s development. However, the Council had no meetings in the years from 2010 to 2012. When the Council finally met, the meeting’s agenda did not include the data duplication or problems with the implementation of the SIRIUS Project. The SIRIUS Project was aimed at a replacement and substitution of several informational systems and databases. The SIRIUS Project aimed at the formation of an integrated single access point for data input as well as for data output for all state administration offices.

The implementation of the SIRIUS Project started in 2010 but got delayed and till 2013, the tender for a main supplier was not finished. In the end, the Ministry cancelled the Project on the basis of a conclusion that it was not possible to achieve the Project’s goals. By then, the Czech Environmental Information Agency (CENIA) had already spent CZK 21 million on the Project’s preparations. Out of the sum, more than CZK 12 million was obtained from the EU funds and the CENIA had to return the amount back in the end of 2013. Since even partial outcomes of the Project have not been preserved by the CENIA for a possible utilization in the future, the SAO finds the investment of CZK 21 million purposeless and uneconomical.

Among other audit findings were the following facts: Two used databases were incompatible and the solution of this problem would cost CZK 1.3 million. The Ministry failed to make a feasibility study into the most economical solutions and failed to monitor the use of their informational systems by the end users. With some informational systems, the Ministry is still dependent on one particular supplier.

Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office

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