Controversial audit in the Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education (MEN) has announced a tender to audit EU projects. Auditors are surprised because the requirements are really low.

At the beginning of September, the ministry cancelled the tender to audit projects financed from EU funds. The procedure to choose the auditor is being repeated now, however, the requirements are surprisingly low. The control covers 7 projects, including the delivery of specialist equipment, equipping training centers, trainings for teachers – Project worth several hundreds million zloty out of PLN 2.9 billion (EUR 759.8m) program. In the previous tender, the ministry expected that the audit would cost over PLN 0.5m. However, the conditions were not prepared well and offers worth PLN 8,000 were submitted.

“MEN is afraid of the audit. We are not going to apply because there are no limits and every statutory auditor may try to win the contract”, one of well-known auditing companies wrote to “PB”.

“The specification has not been published yet so it is not true that it is made wrong. The allegation that everybody can start in the tender is not true. The Ministry prepared the conditions basing on the outlines from the Ministry of Regional Development”, MEN said.

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