The State Housing Development Fund, according to the Supreme Audit Office, does not fulfill its mission

Prague, August 13 (ČTK) - The State Housing Development Fund (SFRB) is not fulfilling its original mission in accordance with the budgetary rules law. This follows from a review by the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ). The NKÚ also examined the management of three other state funds and recommended considering their contributions and possibly merging or abolishing some funds.
    "Thanks to the SFRB's support, more than 330,000 apartments have been repaired or reconstructed and further new apartments have been built. The SFRB has managed to activate approximately 45 billion crowns of private sources from apartment owners through its programs. If it is necessary to adjust the budgetary rules law so that it better corresponds to the active support of housing policy, through the SFRB we are fully prepared to help," said the fund's spokeswoman Jana Marešová to ČTK. However, she stated that the law governing the fund is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance, and the SFRB itself cannot propose changes.
    The Housing Fund, aimed at supporting housing development in the Czech Republic, was established in 2000. The main source of the fund's income was from privatization. From 2000 to 2005, it raised over 33 billion crowns with the intention of creating the necessary long-term resources for financing housing support. By 2010, these resources were nearly exhausted, and without additional sources, the SFRB will not fulfill the purpose for which it was established, the NKÚ warned.
    The auditors also examined the accounting of the SFRB. According to them, the fund did not track the leased assets on off-balance sheet accounts in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, it did not track long-term conditional liabilities, and thus the fund's accounting for the mentioned years was incomplete.
    The NKÚ pointed out that the unsatisfactory functioning of state funds partly stems from the vagueness of the laws under which the individual funds were established. They do not emphasize ensuring sufficient income for the funds, and thus they should not rely on state subsidies, which should only be an extraordinary source of income. The laws also define the actual use of the fund's money very broadly.
    A significant income for the controlled state funds has become interest income from funds in bank accounts. For the SFRB, for example, the income from received interest on temporarily available financial resources amounted to 958.88 million CZK during the reviewed period.