The selection of the designer for the new headquarters will probably be made by the NKÚ at the beginning of next year

Prague - The Supreme Audit Office welcomes the government's decision to release funds for the construction of its headquarters. However, the preparation of the building has been delayed by six months, and the office will likely select the building designer only at the beginning of next year. On Monday, after months of delays and despite the disagreement of Finance Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO), the government decided that the office could use the saved funds from previous years. Babiš demanded a thorough assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the entire investment.

"The preparation for the construction has been delayed by six months. For us, this practically means that we will update the schedule of the entire project and complete the pre-project preparation. I expect that we will select the building designer at the beginning of next year," said Radek Haubert, the Director General of the Administrative Section of the Supreme Audit Office, today.

The office is based in a rented building and has paid a total of 497 million crowns in rent since 2007. The expenses for constructing the headquarters of the Supreme Audit Office are expected to amount to approximately 689 million crowns, of which 459 million will come from the state budget, and 230 million will be covered by saved funds from previous years. According to the Ministry of Finance, the investment, including the land price, amounts to 773 million. The building will also house the parliamentary library and the chamber archive. The construction is set to take place in Prague's Holešovice on the land purchased by the office in 2004. The office is expected to have 5,000 square meters of office space, with an additional 2,500 square meters to be used by parliamentary institutions.

At the end of May, the CPI group, which owns the building in which the office currently resides, proposed to extend the lease under current conditions until 2073. The current lease is set to end in 2023. According to Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek (KDU-ČSL), it is realistic that another state office will move into the current headquarters of the Supreme Audit Office.

"We welcome the government's decision because after months of uncertainty caused by the Ministry of Finance's approach to presenting the mentioned material, we now have secured funding for the construction of a new headquarters," said the President of the Supreme Audit Office, Miloslav Kala. Based on the government's discussions, the office will hand over the current lease to the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters so that it can utilize the freed capacities and the offer for lease extension from the building owner for another organizational unit of the state, he stated.

"Such a resolution should have been adopted by the government six months ago," said Vladimir Koníček (KSČM), Chairman of the Chamber's Control Committee, to ČTK. The committee has already urged Babiš twice this year to include the proposal in the government's agenda without unnecessary delay. The government decision was also welcomed by Václav Votava (ČSSD), chairman of the budget committee. "This fulfilled the resolution of the budget committee and, after all, the resolution of the Chamber," he told ČTK. The budget committee had already approved the funds for the construction last year while reviewing the proposal for this year's budget for the Supreme Audit Office.

Representatives of the Ministry of Finance expressed doubts about the cost-effectiveness of this investment during the discussion of the proposal to release funds in the Control Committee. Babiš, who disagreed with the proposal to release funds, lamented after the government's meeting on Monday that he had been outvoted on all his proposals. "I noted the words of Minister Babiš. He has the same vote as every other minister, the government makes decisions collectively, so I don't understand why he is surprised that he was outvoted," Votava remarked.