The Court of Accounts has identified numerous shortcomings in the management of state property, which create risks of alienation of state property and inefficient use.
Such conclusions were made by the auditors of the Court of Accounts after the audit of the compliance of the management of public assets of the Public Property Agency (APP) in 2019-2021. The audit concerned the corporate management of state-owned enterprises and JSCs with state capital, while indirectly affecting other related areas: management of public property of the state, delimitation and accounting of public property, control over the efficient use of public property, ensuring the rights and property interests of the state. The audit revealed a lack of strategic visions in the area of state participation in the economy, lack of a strategic development program, annual action plan and internal regulations. State-owned enterprises' charters were not approved according to the established pattern, assets contributed to the public capital and assets transferred to the management of enterprises were not created, and APP did not follow the development of state-owned enterprises' activities. The auditors found insufficient information systems of APP, inefficient management of state property assets transferred for use to state-owned enterprises, as well as regulatory gaps in this area. Also, there were revealed the lack of exhaustive measures to ensure the rights and property interests of the state, including through inaction of debtor's representatives in bankruptcy procedures of state enterprises; the adoption by insolvency administrators of the right to manage and dispose of public property, which led to the possible deprivation of the right to possess, use and dispose of public property, etc. The Accounts Chamber drew attention to the fragmentation of the internal management control system of APP, the functionality of which does not meet the specified requirements, as well as the duplication of some tasks. There are no information systems that would facilitate the work of APP employees and ensure accounting of assets and processes related to corporate governance. The Court of Accounts gave a number of recommendations to address the identified discrepancies, including the failure to implement the recommendations given earlier. The Public Property Agency acts as the founder of 126 state-owned enterprises and the owner of the shares of 77 commercial companies with the state share in the share capital. The value of the equity capital of the state-owned enterprises, managed by APP, is 4 billion 857.2 million lei, and the value of shares is 4 billion 581 million lei. // 29.08.2022 - InfoMarket.
