On 29 of March the Member of the European Commission for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud Mr Algirdas Šemeta will pay a visit to the National Audit Office of Lithuania. During the visit Mr Šemeta will be accompanied by Ms Laimutė Pilukaitė, Acting Head of the Representation of the European Commission in Lithuania and Ms Lina Rimkutė, Cabinet assistant. Commissioner will meet the Auditor General Ms Rasa Budbergytė to discuss the following topics: the feedback on the situation of Audit on EU funds, priorities of Ms Budbergytė in the European Court of Auditors (Recently Ms Rasa Budbergytė was appointed a member of the European Court of Auditors and will start her activities in the new position beginning with May 2010). Pictures from the visit

In 2008, European Union (EU) funds management and control system conformed to requirements of European institutions and operated efficiently, says the National Audit Office in the Report for 2008. The NAOL gave a qualified opinion, since there was no possibility to evaluate the practical operation of some key elements of the management and control systems. According to the Auditor General Rasa Budbergytė, certain findings of the audit show that public institutions should improve the management of funds and enhance the control of their use.

In the opinion of the Auditor General, in 2008 the use of the EU structural assistance in Lithuania was slow; only LTL 705 million, or 2.26 per cent of all the planned funds had been used until the beginning of 2009. However, even this amount was not declared to the European Commission until the beginning of 2009, therefore auditors were not able to evaluate their use. In the beginning of the programming period, the use of funds was mostly impeded by the drawn-out drafting of legislation both in the EU and Lithuanian institutions. Read more

Although preservation of cultural heritage in Lithuania is a concern of more than one institution, no substantial positive changes preserving immovable cultural heritage are visible. Such an opinion was reached by the National Audit Office auditors who had assessed the effectiveness of the protection of cultural heritage in Lithuania. Currently 16.233 immovable cultural heritage objects are added to Register of Cultural Heritage, and 6.030 are given the status of the State protected objects. In 2007-2009, over LTL 314 million from municipal budgets were allocated  to the preservation of protected heritage.

The Auditor General Rasa Budbergytė says that if the Ministry of Culture would give a precise and clear definition of what objects, why and how the State should protect, as well as what criteria attributes them to the State protection, it would solve majority of the problems. “Without the definition of the Ministry of Culture as to what, how and why should be protected and without its control, it is difficult to expect that immovable cultural heritage of Lithuania will be properly protected and the funds allocated to that end would be used rationally,“ adds the Auditor General. Read more