Completed audits

09.09.2021. As part of the comprehensive audits of the support to curb the Covid-19, the State Audit Office has completed the audit of two support measures for entrepreneurs at the State Revenue Service including accelerated refund of overpaid value added tax and extension of the deadline for payment of taxes administered by the SRS. Both measures were implemented according to the intended purposes and the established procedure. Moreover, the implementation of the audit recommendations will improve information technology solutions, which will prevent delays in the refund of overpaid value added tax.

24.08.2021. The Covid-19 pandemic affected municipal budgets, and the reduction in funding could also hamper the implementation of ongoing or planned investment projects. State loans for high-readiness municipal investment objects was one of the types of support that the government chose for local and regional governments. Public lending to local and regional governments, which totalled to 99.5 million euros by the end of 2020, was aimed at warming up the economy by supporting the construction sector, whose financial situation had not deteriorated in 2020. In general, the loans have been used in accordance with the intended purposes and the statutory procedures whereas the legal framework and the process of evaluation of investment projects should be improved.

18.05.2021. Having completed the audits and published the results, the State Audit Office acknowledges that ministries and institutions have spent the additional allocated funds in accordance with the purpose of their allocation in general. However, some measures do not have a direct link between the state aid and the COVID-19 crisis management, and the criteria defined for granting the state aid have not been economically justified sufficiently, as well as other deficiencies have been identified. Read more...

07.05.2021. The State Audit Office has no doubt that funding for the implementation of the target program “Sustainability of Cultural Institutions Affected by COVID-19” has been requested reasonably. The calculation of the amount of funding requested is clear and traceable.

29.04.2021. The State Audit Office audited the solidity and actual use of the requests for additional funds allocated to the Ministry of Transport for the prevention of the consequences of COVID. In the last financial year, it accounted for a quarter of the total funding allocated to curb the COVID-19 or almost 306 million euros.

13.04.2021. To overcome the COVID-19 crisis and mitigate its effects, the government allocated 45.5 million euros from the state budget for contingencies to support the agricultural and food production sectors in 2020. The State Audit Office publishes an interim report on the allocated 35.5 million euros, which, based on the calculations of the Ministry of Agriculture, was provided for three support programs. Read more...

06.04.2021. The State Audit Office carried out an audit to ascertain whether the Ministry of Health used the funding of 14.9 million euros allocated to increase the capacity of the largest hospitals in the country following the purpose. The audit has revealed that one has invested in the fixed capital of the Eastern Hospital, the Stradiņš Hospital, and the Children’s Hospital in 2020 as planned. Within the framework of the funding allocated to them, the hospitals have purchased medical equipment for the care of COVID-19 infected patients with minor deviations from the plan. Read more...

30.03.2021. The State Audit Office has drafted a case study report “Provision of resources necessary for curbing the spread of COVID-19 in state and municipal institutions”. Read more...

19.03.2021. The audit concludes that the funds allocated and used for the implementation of road projects have been spent in accordance with the purpose of the allocation and, in general, the allocation and use of additional funds has served as a solution for economic recovery and stimulus. The audit also found that in the post- emergency conditions, state-owned “Latvijas Valsts ceļi” Ltd has managed to implement procurements at a lower price than originally planned resulting in a larger volume of works performed than initially planned. “Funds for economic recovery for the project implementation in motor road sector.” 

12.03.2021. For supporting the representatives of creative professions, whose professional activity was limited in 2020 due to the epidemiological situation and restrictions imposed in the country, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated a total of two million euros to the National Culture Capital Fund (NCCF) from the state program “Contingency Funds” to finance the target program “Employment Program for Creative People”. Read more...

23.02.2021. The use of funding allocated to the Ministry of Welfare for disbursement of unemployment benefit and young specialist benefit Although the audit has identified deviations in the planning of the necessary funding, the audit has obtained assurance that the funding allocated for the disbursement of both benefits in 2020 has been used in accordance with the laws and regulations. At the same time, when analysing the actual expenditure on unemployment benefits, the auditors draw attention to the fact that the unemployment benefits granted to some individuals exceeded the previously granted unemployment benefits significantly.

10.02.2021. Between 1 March 2020 and 31 May 2020, the Ministry of Health has granted funding not exceeding 8 million euros to provide bonuses to medical practitioners and other employees in the healthcare sector for working in high-risk and hyperdynamic environment related to the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences. The Cabinet of Ministers authorised the Minister of Health to decide on the use of funding in accordance with the actual needs. When analysing the requirements and criteria set out in the Cabinet Order in connection with the actions of heads of institutions when granting bonuses, the State Audit Office has concluded that the requirements set for hospitals and healthcare institutions, including the Emergency Medical Service, were interpreted differently and created an excessive administrative burden. In its turn, one should not have assessed the contribution of GPs in fact and all practices were granted fixed bonuses for working under COVID-19 conditions.Read more...

15.01.2021. Having completed the audit of the 190 million euros allocated to the Ministry of Economics, which one intends to transfer to joint-stock company “Development Financial Institution Altum” from the state budget, the State Audit Office concludes in the interim audit report that not all the sum of the investment into Altum was justified. This amount was allocated in five programs to support economic operators in difficulty due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The State Audit Office has to admit that there is no clarity about the possible action with the balance of those funds after the end of the loan and guarantee programs, when the businesses will have repaid the loans and the term of the guarantees will have expired.

05.01.2021. There was a crisis benefit introduced from 22 March 2020 to provide support to those people whose income was not sufficient to ensure even basic needs and who were not entitled to other types of support introduced by the state during the state of emergency declared in connection with the established restrictions. The payment of benefit was assigned to municipal Social Services providing that the state ensured earmarked grant to local and regional governments to co-finance benefit expenses at 50% of the amount of benefit paid to an individual but not more than 40 euros per person per month and an additional 50 euros per child. Although the audit verified that the additional funding was used as intended, the auditors concluded that people with an equal income level could not receive equivalent support, as the amount of the municipal benefit ranged from 30 to 150 euros per month, and the approach of the Social Services to the provision of support differed.Read more...

 

22.12.2020. The State Audit Office inspected the funding allocated to the Social Integration Fund for media support of 1,040,928 euros and the funding allocated to the National Electronic Mass Media Council of 1,259,261 euros to ensure the broadest possible communication of the Latvian population and to ensure that the public has access to comprehensive information and views on overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, as well as to provide the security of the national information space in commercial electronic mass media. The Riga East Clinical University Hospital, the Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital, and the Ministry of Health were aware of the problems with the technical condition of the buildings for long before the emergency occurred, thus the funding requested from the budget program “Contingency Funds” of 1,323,563 euros was spent on the needs forecasted in advance to ensure that one should have planned the required resources in the annual budget of the hospitals. Read more... 

 

14.12.2020. Between 12 March and 30 September 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated additional funds of 781,600 euros to the Ministry of Justice in connection with overcoming, mitigating, and preventing the COVID-19 crisis, including 518,730 euros in bonuses to the employees of the Ministry of Justice for working in high-risk and stress-related conditions in connection with the prevention of COVID-19 outbreaks and mitigating consequences. Read more...

 

26.11.2020. Continuing to examine the solidity of the requests for additional budget funds allocated for the elimination of COVID-19 consequences and their actual use, the State Audit Office has compiled the results on the downtime benefit administered by the Ministry of Finance, and the downtime support benefit administered by the Ministry of Welfare. The proposals aim both at observing the same conditions for potential recipients of downtime benefits and at simplifying the complicated administration of benefits and extra payments by making it more logical and cost-effective for the state budget. Read more... and read more...

 

14.10.2020. Until 1 December 2020, the Ministry of the Interior shall recalculate the bonuses for the employees of the State Police and the State Border Guard, who were involved in mitigating the consequences of COVID-19 during the emergency in the country, as the State Audit Office has discovered during the audit on the bonus calculation procedure that the bonuses have not been calculated fairly and proportionate to the actual contribution in all cases. Therefore, one cannot state that officials have also been remunerated equivalently for equivalent work. Read more...

 

30.09.2020. The State Audit Office has prepared an interim report when auditing the use of the allocated funding for the provision of distance learning. Read more...

 

29.09.2020. The State Audit Office has prepared an interim report when auditing the use of the allocated funding for the payment of crisis benefits to the clergy and ministries of religious unions (churches).

 

11.09.2020. When assessing the justification for the transfer of funds allocated to the Ministry of Justice to the Latvian Council of Sworn Notaries, the auditors of the State Audit Office have concluded that the Latvian Council of Sworn Notaries as the owner of the state information systems, namely, the Register of Inheritances and the Register of Last Wills and Testaments, performs a non-typical function for the Council, that is, the Council maintains the state information systems at its own expense although the Law on state information systems stipulates that the maintenance of state information systems is the duty of the State and they must be maintained from the state budget funds.

 

09.09.2020. The State Audit Office submits proposals to the Prime Minister after audits of COVID-19 related procurements. Read more...

 

02.09.2020.  When examining the use of additional funding allocated to the Ministry of the Interior from the budget program “Contingency Funds” for the purchase of personal protective equipment, disinfectants, and their packaging during the audit, the auditors could not assess whether the supplier selection process met pre-defined criteria understandable to all parties involved. Only during the coordination of the interim report, the Ministry of the Interior did inform the State Audit Office about the set criteria (the potential supplier responded to the offer immediately, offered a reasonable price, short delivery times, and did not request prepayment) and the position regarding documentation of procurement progress (ensuring protection of the employees urgently was more significant than specific documentation of each activity). However, when assessing the documents provided by the audited entities, that is, the Provision State Agency and the State Police, and the information provided by their officials, the auditors could not be confident that they had used any criteria in selecting potential cooperation partners and evaluating the submitted tenders, as one had documented the tender assessment process only partially. Consequently, not all decisions made in the process of purchasing personal protective equipment are traceable, and one cannot consider the procurement process as a whole cannot be transparent. Read more...

 

17.08.2020. This interim report covers the activities carried out in the period from 2 April 2020 to 9 June 2020, that is, the takeover of the management of crisis-related state material reserves and centralised procurement from the Ministry of Health, the definition of emergency procurement procedures, and procuring itself. Following this interim report, the State Audit Office will also report on how the management of crisis-related state material reserves is ensured, including identification of types and quantities of material and technical resources required, and whether a reserve of personal protective equipment and disinfectants has been established for at least three months in accordance with the order of the Cabinet of Ministers. Read more...

 

20.07.2020. A pandemic of this magnitude like COVID-19 was unpredictable in the world and Latvia. Therefore, the consequences of long-term inaccuracies in the planning and procurement of material reserves are revealing under the state of emergency in a short period, and the organisation of the process of purchasing personal protective equipment still raises a number of unanswered questions. Undeniably, the new circumstances required the ability to respond and adapt to an emergency quickly and caused deviations from the usual order. At the same time, the audit has discovered that in the process of delivering personal protective equipment in the health sector, one has made a number of unilateral decisions, has lacked transparency while explaining supplier evaluation criteria, and this raises suspicions of a possible risk of corruption. Read more ...

 

01.06.2020. Analytical overview of interventions by national and European authorities on deviations from procurement and compliance assessment rules and regulations during COVID-19 pandemic. The report:

• analyses the approaches proposed by national authorities and the European Commission to applying public procurement and conformity assessment principles and procedures;
• is supposed to serve as the ‘background document’ for further assessment  of the decisions made by the government and public institutions when assessing specific issues like public procurement procurements as well as, by analogy, other interventions or instruments applied by the government to address COVID-19 consequences. Read more ...