“The education sector is granted more than a billion euro a year, thus we will first of all look inside the sector to find resources for resolving teachers’ wage payment problems. The Ministry of Education and Science, as well as 17 of its subordinate institutions are the largest purchasing organisations, they perform larger risk public procurements. Transparent activity could help save a large amount of funds and auditing will show if such opportunities exist,” minister R. Masiulis stated.
A team from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, a joint auditor and corruption prevention taskforce and the Special Investigation Service (STT) will be tasked with the audit. It will evaluate whether state assignations are used sparingly, if there are no manifestations of corruption in public procurements and if public and private interests do not clash.
The Ministry of Education and Science, together with its 17 subordinate institutions, were granted 125.3 million euro for public procurements in 2016-2018.
This year, state budget assignations to the education sector reached 1.056 billion euro. Of these, 5.1 million went to the ministry, while the remainder, 1.051 billion euro – to another 154 institutions. The budget of the ministry’s 17 subordinate institutions was comprised of 32.8 million euro. These funds were used for wages, Sodra taxes, goods and services purchases.
The largest portion (65%) of the assignations go to schools through municipalities. Minister R. Masiulis will discuss savings potential with municipal representatives soon.