Agriculture Ministry plans audits while Environment Ministry declines more

The Agriculture Ministry is preparing an action plan for optimising processes and auditing subordinate institutions, while the Environment Ministry says it has no plans for additional audits, LRT reported.

The Agriculture Ministry said it was conducting a detailed analysis of its processes, assessing duplicated functions and looking for ways to remove unnecessary bureaucratic safeguards that create an additional burden for farmers and civil servants.

Inspections by the National Paying Agency and the State Food and Veterinary Service have already been combined. Instead of separate visits, the institutions now inspect farmers together.

The ministry plans to present a joint action plan in September. It will include specific auditing guidelines, including an anti-corruption assessment.

The Agriculture Ministry is also conducting audits at two institutions under its authority, the Plant Protection Service and the State Food and Veterinary Service.

The audit of the Plant Protection Service is being carried out under an annual plan to assess the implementation of anti-corruption measures and progress in creating an environment resistant to corruption. The ministry expects to complete it by the end of September.

The audit of the State Food and Veterinary Service is continuing. The ministry said the auditing company Audifina had submitted its report last Friday after missing the deadline set in the contract. Further steps to complete the audit will be taken once the draft report is received.

The Cabinet extended the deadline for the audit by three months, until September. The Agriculture Ministry received permission to conduct the audit at the end of January and signed a 32,500 euro contract, including VAT, with Audifina on May 12.

The audit covers the service’s internal controls and process management, information resource management, the use and improvement of information systems, financial resources and managed assets. It will also examine public procurement, human resource management and the impact of administrative procedures and requirements on businesses and farmers.

The Environment Ministry told ELTA that it currently saw no objective grounds for additional audits at the ministry or its subordinate institutions. Their activities are assessed under existing legislation and internal control requirements, it said, adding that additional audits or other assessments could be considered if a justified need or operational risks were identified.

The issue of audits was raised after politicians proposed reviewing ministries overseen by the Nemunas Dawn party in the previous government. Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said in June that he would propose that the future heads of those ministries conduct institutional audits at their own discretion and on a visible scale.