Money for the National Cultural Treasure: The Ministry of Culture assessed the tender dossier for 21 months, an extra CZK 11 million was paid.
Press release to Audit No. 17/16 – 26. 2. 2018
The Supreme Audit Office focused on distributing money from the "National Treasure Management Programme” between 2012 and 2017. The money from this programme is intended to improve the conditions for preserving the cultural heritage, which is maintained by some major museums, libraries, and archives. It is used for repairs, completion or upgrading of buildings or their maintenance, but also, for instance, for the construction of technically adequate depositaries. The SAO has scrutinized almost CZK 10 billion at the system level and over CZK 570 million at the level of subsidy recipients. From this programme, the auditors have already examined two completed events: creating expositions in the main building of the National Technical Museum and building a central depository of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. The audit showed that the money was used for its intended purpose, however, the auditors revealed some system deficiencies and several partial deficiencies in the audited actions.
The Ministry of Culture started with the distribution of money from this programme in 2007. Originally, the money was to be divided into 17 actions, the programme was supposed to be completed in 2014 and subsequently the resort was to evaluate its benefits. However, the programme has yet to be completed more than 10 years later. Only CZK 4.2 billion has been spent from the prepared ten billion crown budget and just the distribution of money from the programme will last at least until 2020.
There have been several reasons for the prolongation of the programme. One of them was that the supported actions had been delayed – only five out of the 29 events did not suffer a delay. The Ministry of Culture said that delays in procurement procedures, complicated handling of adjustments, or unpredictable archaeological findings had been the main cause of delays. At two audited actions, the SAO found other more reasons that were not only causing delays but also incurring costs that could have been avoided.
During the construction of the new central depository of the Museum of the Decorative Arts, the Ministry of Culture had been assessing and approving the tender dossier for 21 months and during this time there were changes in the way funding was awarded, from the open procedure to the restricted one and vice versa. As a result of this, the construction of the depository eventually took place at the same time as the repair of the historic building. Therefore, the Museum of the Decorative Arts had to place its art collections and workers in extra rooms, for which the rental and operation costs amounted to almost CZK 11 million from the state budget. Both of these events were initially deliberately planned so that they did not run at the same time and the Museum of the Decorative Arts did not need this extra space. Originally, the depository was to be completed in 2012, but it was not until December 2016 when it was put into operation.
Auditors examining the preparation of expositions in the main building of the National Technical Museum found that some of the terms and objectives had been set unrealistically, creating costs that could have otherwise been avoided. It was an exhibition of the "First Hundred Years of the National Technical Museum" which the museum failed to prepare in time and had to cancel – the costs for its preparation were almost CZK 400 thousand. The exhibition "Drives and Motors" was eventually cancelled due to its excessive complexity, and before it was cancelled, the museum had spent over CZK 200 thousand. In the case of the "Mining" exhibition, the National Technical Museum had project documentation created for almost CZK 650 thousand which they eventually did not follow. However, there are only minor deficiencies overall - the construction of exhibitions within the museum funded by this programme came to a total of CZK 164 million.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office