Instead of small businesses, the Ministry of Agriculture created mainly large companies of small businesses, controllers | iRADIO
In supporting the processing of agricultural products, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Intervention Fund subsidized mainly large companies with profits of ten million to one hundred million, although the support was supposed to go primarily to small businesses. The Supreme Audit Office stated this in a press release.
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The Supreme Audit Office verified how the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Intervention Fund handled state and European Union money intended to support the processing of agricultural products between 2018 and 2021.
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Controllers in press releasesE they state that although, according to the strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture and the European subsidy program, support should have been directed primarily to micro-enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, the Ministry did not prepare any national subsidy program for them in the mentioned years.
According to him, the Ministry did not monitor and evaluate the efficiency, effectiveness or benefits of spending national subsidies, and when providing European subsidies, it did not verify whether the supported projects brought the required innovations. In response, the Ministry stated that some programs were not set up correctly in the past, and adjusted the strategic plan.
On the contrary, he announced a program to increase competitiveness intended only for large processing enterprises. In the mentioned years, the Ministry of Large Enterprises paid out 1.7 billion crowns from it.
“For European subsidies, the Ministry of Agriculture set such drawing conditions that small and medium-sized enterprises were only interested in one out of four investment operations,” the office said.
‘Incorrectly set programs’
According to the auditors, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Intervention Fund decided on the subsidy without requiring the applicants to substantiate their claims about the benefits of the proposed investments.
In the case of selected beneficiaries, the subsidy office found that they invest hundreds of millions of crowns every year in the renewal and modernization of the technical equipment of their establishments.
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“According to the Supreme Audit Office, the annual repeated drawing of national subsidies from the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture creates a risk of the so-called dead weight effect, i.e. a situation where the beneficiaries would invest even without public financial support,” the auditors pointed out.
According to the ministry, the inspection showed that some programs were not set up correctly in the past.
“Therefore, what I have been saying since I took office has been confirmed – a number of subsidies in the past were measured in favor of large companies at the expense of small and medium-sized ones. That is why in 2018 we devoted enormous effort to changing the Strategic Plan of the State Agricultural Intervention Fund, which we modified in order to more effectively secure small and medium-sized enterprises,” responded the Ministry of Agriculture Zdeněk Nekula (KDU-ČSL).
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