NKÚ will not yet address the digitization of building proceedings at the MMR.

Prague - The Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) will not yet deal with the expenditure of funds from the Ministry of Regional Development for the digitization of building proceedings. The reason is the announced investigation by the European Commission, the planned forensic audit by the new Minister of Regional Development, Petr Kulhánek (STAN), and several criminal complaints that have been filed. This was stated today by the president of the NKÚ, Miloslav Kala, during the program Questions of Václav Moravec on Czech Television.

Due to problems with the transition to digitized building proceedings, Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) left the government last year. According to Kala, the entire digitization project was not a simple matter, but involved a package of six information systems, for which four public procurements were announced for 1.2 billion CZK. The current government took over the already initiated project from its predecessors.

In December, the NKÚ received a proposal to conduct an audit from the MPs of the Control Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. "We have the audit prepared, but we will wait to see how these control institutions develop before us," stated Kala. He added that the office is currently auditing a partial part of the project related to the creation and development of digital technical maps. In other matters, the initiation of audits is coordinated with the public prosecutor's office and the European Commission.

According to Kala, from today's perspective it would have perhaps been better to stop the digitization of the systems in the spring of last year, even at the cost of not being able to use funds from the European National Recovery Plan. "With the knowledge of how it ended, it was probably better to stop it. But at the moment when the decision was being made, it was not so simple," he added.

The launch of the building proceedings system on July 1 of last year was accompanied by extensive problems, and in many places, this system was not launched at all. Elsewhere, it was unavailable, or its connection to the land registry did not work. In October, after Bartoš's departure, the government decided to announce a new contract for the digital building proceedings system and introduced the possibility of using both the original and digital systems simultaneously during a transitional period until the beginning of 2028.