Tomorrow in Parliament: Party Operations, Procurement Efficiency and Use of Official Vehicles

The Croatian Parliament’s session this week begins on Tuesday when it will discuss several reports from the State Audit Office, including reports on the financial audit of political parties, as well as the efficiency of procurement and the proper use of official state vehicles.

Party Operations in 2015

The financial audit for 2015 covered 18 parliamentary and 20 non-parliamentary parties, six independent representatives, and two independent local councilors, entities that generated revenue exceeding 100 thousand kuna that year.

After extensive work, the Bosniak Democratic Party of Croatia (BDSH) received an unfavorable audit opinion, 16 parties received unconditional opinions, and 21 received conditional opinions. The audit had no objections regarding the work of independent parliamentary representatives; of the two independent councilors, one received an unconditional opinion, while the other received a conditional opinion.

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(The) execution of recommendations from previous audits, the internal control system, planning and accounting operations, the use of office space, and financing of electoral campaigns are irregularities identified by the Audit Office among the parties.

The parties audited generated a total of 155.4 million kuna, mostly from public sources (state and local budgets), and spent 157.4 million, thus overall being in a ‘deficit’.

Their credit obligations amounted to 40.3 million kuna, which is about 45 percent of their assets, as warned by the relevant parliamentary Committee on Finance and State Budget. Of all the loans taken, 91 percent relates to three parties: HDZ, SDP, and HNS (36.8 million kuna).

How much do official vehicles cost?

Official vehicles of budget users, nearly nine and a half thousand of them, cost taxpayers 366 million kuna in 2014, this amount includes ‘only’ expenses for fuel, registration, insurance, rental fees, but not the costs of vehicle procurement, reveals the Audit Report on the efficiency of procurement and the proper use of official vehicles by state budget users.

According to the Register of Budget Users, in September 2015, 636 users had almost 9500 official vehicles, more precisely 504 users, as 128 did not have official vehicles, and four users from the security system, citing their relevant law, did not provide data on the number of official vehicles.

The audit warns that the method and conditions for renewing the vehicle fleet are not prescribed, that a framework number of necessary vehicles has not been established, nor the justification for procurement for each. Public procurement procedures and needs assessment take too long; before procuring vehicles, it is not examined whether the most commonly used procurement model through operational leasing is the most cost-effective, or if there might be more favorable methods.

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The audit also criticizes the method of recording the use of official vehicles, as not all prescribed data is often entered, and in fuel consumption control, there is no comparison by groups or vehicle models.

Due to all these irregularities, the State Audit Office concludes that procurement and the proper use of vehicles are only partially effective, indicating that there is much room for improvement.

Representatives, who returned to their parliamentary benches on Friday after a two-month break, will also discuss the State Audit reports on the efficiency of the public procurement system in companies, the efficiency of managing mineral resources, and the work of supervisory boards of companies owned by municipalities, cities, and counties on Tuesday.