EU may withhold subsidies for Czech operational programme

Prague, Oct 15 (CTK) - The European Union may not pay subsidies of hundreds of million crowns within the operational programme Education for Competitiveness, the Czech Supreme Audit Office (NKU) has found out, its spokeswoman Olga Malkova told CTK yesterday.

An NKU inspection has uncovered defects in assessment, choice and control of the projects, Malkova said.

The NKU has checked the working of the system as well as 43 individual projects worth 145.8 million crowns, Malkova said.

"The inspectors found major faults in a number of spheres. The Education Ministry did not submit all selection criteria of the projects to the monitoring committee for approval," the NKU said in its report.

When choosing the projects, the key problem was posed by a high risk of biased assessment, Malkova said.

The decisions were made by a high number of members of selection commissions who were biased, she added.

"They had some relations with the discussed projects. With the unsuitable composition of the selection commissions, the ministry risks that the objectivity and impartiality of the choice of projects will be questioned," the NKU said.

In the case of four projects, the selection commission totally changed the assessment. At first, it did not recommend their funding, but at a later, extraordinary meeting, it gave a go-ahead to them, Malkova said.

However, it never explained the change of mind, she added.

"In these four projects alone, the inspectors found violation of the budget discipline worth 56.1 million crowns," the NKU said.

Besides, in its annual reports for 2008-2010, the Education Ministry was submitting wrong information on how the operational programme Education for Competitiveness was developing to the European Commission.

"The Education Ministry has also failed to check the public tenders put up by the recipients of the subsidies," the NKU said.

The operational programme Education for Competitiveness has been in trouble for a long time. Education Minister Petr Fiala has said the Czech Republic may be unable to draw four to five billion crowns from it due to poorly prepared projects and delays.

($1 = 19.238 crowns)