The audit mission of the Court of Auditors of the Republic of Moldova was unable to pronounce on the accuracy of the value of property indicated in the consolidated financial reports of the Ministry of Finance for 2017, including buildings – 375.6 million lei, assets – 57.7m lei and land – 30.6m lei. This limitation was determined by the national normative framework on the assessment of public and private property of the state, which does not stipulate uniform criteria for setting the real value. The audit report was presented in the Court’s August 1 meeting, IPN reports.

For example, the administrative building of the central staff of the Customs Service has an accounting value of 25.3m lei, while the cadastral value is 36.8m lei, by 11.5m lei higher. The administrative building of the Giurgiulesti-Galati customs post, being registered with an accounting value of 43.6m lei, has the cadastral value of 0.2m lei. The administrative building of the Leuseni customs post has an accounting value of 42.5m lei and a cadastral value of 1m lei. The land at 30 Starostenco St in Chisinau that belongs to the Customs Service has an accounting value 3,000 lei, while the cadastral value is 30m lei.

The insufficient control over the calculation formulas of the accounting information system led to the incorrect calculation of the wear degree of the fixed assets. This mistake is a systemic one and can affect the previous periods. On December 31, 2017, the Ministry of Finance reported a wear degree of 923.4m lei.

The audit team also established that the accounting policy of the Ministry of Finance and the normative financial reporting framework do not set down rules and procedures for merging the financial information when compiling consolidated reports. Consequently, in 2017 the accounts and reciprocal transactions that caused a 59.7 m lei rise in revenues and costs weren’t eliminated.

The audit report says the property reported by the Ministry on December 31, 2017 consisted of fixed assets of 657.5m lei and circulating assets of 63.7m lei. The revenues were 1.1bn lei, while expenditure was 1.3bn lei. The Customs Service, the Fiscal Service and the Ministry’s staff accounted for the largest part of the owned property and costs.

The Court formulated recommendations that are to be implemented by the entities  indicated in the audit report.