The state spends billions on housing support, but it has only a marginal impact on the housing market. This is the result of an audit by the Supreme Audit Office Nejvyššího kontrolního úřadu-(NKÚ). According to the audit, the main problems of housing policy, especially the availability and quality of the housing stock, have persisted for a long time. The NKÚ audited the money spent by the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) and the State Fund for Investment Support (SFPI). The two institutions spent a total of CZK 13.9 billion on housing support between 2016 and 2021 and supported more than 4,500 projects. According to the MMR, the NKÚ’s audit report is an unflattering report card for the ANO movement.
The ministry was headed by Karla Šlechtová and Klára Dostálová in the audited years. “The NKÚ audit report confirmed our assessment of the basically non-existent housing policy of the previous government. It is a rather unflattering report card for the ANO movement, which first threw the law on social housing under the table, saying that it was not needed. Then it replaced it with investment programmes, but municipalities were not interested in them because of the inappropriately set conditions,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) in his response.
Auditors point to the lack of a systemic solution to the issue of housing support, including its legal regulation since 2016. Among other things, the subsidy and loan programmes of the Ministry of the Interior and the SFPI are aimed at investment support for the acquisition of social and rental housing. In a report published today, the SAO noted that while 234,538 flats were completed in the Czech Republic between 2016 and 2022, a total of 1,894 social flats for people with difficult access to housing will have been built by the end of 2021 with the support of the MMR. The SFPI Construction for Municipalities grant and loan programme, aimed at building social and affordable housing, was supposed to provide and improve housing for at least 2,375 households, but by the end of 2022 only 226 of these apartments had been completed, according to the auditors. “The projected indicator was only met at about 9.52 percent during this period, which is disproportionately low,” the NKÚ said.
In response, the current leadership of the Ministry of Regional Development said that the SFPI successfully replaced the ineffective Rental Flats and Construction for Municipalities programs last year under new leadership. This year, it will also begin offering practical advice to municipalities on preparing housing construction projects. A systematic solution to the housing shortage and its financing for local governments is to be brought by the draft law on housing support, which the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs have prepared together. The draft is expected to be discussed by the Chamber of Deputies this year. “This is a law that can significantly change housing policy in the Czech Republic. And we have been waiting for it for almost 30 years. Together with the whole broad Housing for Life reform, it is now my hottest iron in the fire,” Bartoš noted.
The audit also revealed that the Ministry of the Interior does not have enough information on the number of target groups, the size and quality of the housing stock, especially those used for social housing. “Neither the MMR nor the SFPI have an overview of the actual occupancy of social and rental housing,” the auditors said. According to Bartos, the ministry is building a team of experienced analysts. “At the end of the year we published research on municipal housing stock and also on long-term unoccupied flats,” the minister added.
Source: CTK
