The consolidated financial situations of the Ministry of Justice on December 31, 2017 do not present a reliable and truthful picture given the significant distortions identified in the central staff and in the managed entities, shows the Court of Auditors’ audit report that was presented in a public meeting on July 24, IPN reports.

In 2017, the Ministry of Justice – the central staff and the subordinate authorities – managed financial resources in the amount of 627.8 million lei, including costs of 498.6 million lei and non-financial assets of 129.2 million lei. The audit team established that the central staff of the Ministry in 2017 illegally increased the costs by 6 million lei following the  scrapping of a non-financial asset (computer network).

The subordinate National Probation Inspectorate incorrectly classified and assigned the costs for software modernization of (77,100 lei) and for installing air-conditioning systems (44,400 lei). Also, the Ministry of Justice didn’t evaluate and didn’t include 17 buddings with a total area of over 1,462 square meters in the accounting records.

The subordinate National Administration of Penitentiaries increased the value of fixed assets by over 7 million lei following works to reconstruct buildings that were carried out in 2013-2016, but were classed as capital investments  under utilization.

The government procurement process was affected by a series of inconsistencies that had an impact on the reporting of costs, such as the non-publication of the announcement of intent and the annual plan of action by the central staff of the Ministry of Justice and, respectively, the National Probation Inspectorate.

Also, the Ministry of Justice insufficiently monitored the process of building and reconstructing the penitentiaries in accordance with the Government’s action plan for 2016-2018. This leads to delays in meeting the requirements concerning the improvement of detention conditions.

The deficiencies identified by the public audit distorted the consolidated financial situations of the Ministry of Justice by the sum of 16.2 million lei.

Eduard Serbenco, secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, assured that the Ministry has sufficient capacities for remedying the deficiencies specified in the audit report.