A draft protocol from the Czech Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) says a former adviser to the labour minister was involved in a conflict of interest while public funding applications were being assessed. Alexandra Semancová oversaw grants at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs while her company prepared paid applications for clients seeking funding from the same programmes. The audit says three projects under the National Recovery Plan can no longer be paid from EU money, creating unexpected costs for the Czech state budget.
Audit identifies three affected recovery-plan projects
The NKÚ examined the case after reporting by Seznam Zprávy and identified three National Recovery Plan projects affected by Semancová’s conflict of interest. Its draft protocol says 82,988,686.09 koruna in costs originally expected to be financed from the recovery plan instead arise for the state budget. Almost 50 million koruna had already been paid to Semancová’s clients, according to the audit findings. The ministry separately refers to six projects across the recovery plan and the Employment Plus programme, and says the expected state-budget requirement is approximately 69.3 million koruna. The figures cover different scopes: the audit’s stated total concerns three recovery-plan projects, while the ministry’s estimate covers six projects in two programmes.
The mechanism was a grant-control and advisory overlap
The conflict arose because Semancová had two connected roles. At the ministry, she could oversee the allocation of grants; through Siptrade, a company she owned, she provided clients with paid grant administration and application services. The audit says she knowingly concealed, or gave false information about, her continuing business activity. This is significant in a public grant process because the person helping applicants obtain money should not also have access to, or influence over, the public assessment process. The ministry carries institutional responsibility under the audit’s draft, regardless of personal fault, for the conflict and the alleged breach of European rules. The draft was not described as a court judgment, and the ministry had the opportunity to submit objections.
State funding replaced the planned European source
The ministry decided that the affected projects would be funded in full from the state budget after they were removed from the recovery-plan financing stream. The minister, Aleš Juchelka, had decided in March not to report tens of millions of grants to Brussels because of the potential conflict, following advice from ministry grant experts who warned that failing to act could put wider funding programmes at risk. NKÚ said the ministry was authorised to support children’s groups from the state budget, but questioned the legal basis for paying projects that had been taken out of the recovery plan. The ministry did not specify the legal provisions supporting payment for completed children’s groups, despite repeated requests from the auditors.
Audit also criticises a payment to Vykáň
The auditors focused separately on 7.2 million koruna paid to the municipality of Vykáň at the beginning of March. Siptrade’s then managing director, Semancová’s daughter, submitted the application for payment. At the same time, Semancová was a ministerial adviser with access to the internal grant system and could follow the application’s assessment. Siptrade charged Vykáň 300,000 koruna for grant advice and a feasibility study and also agreed a commission linked to the grant received. NKÚ concluded that the ministry had used the state-budget money unlawfully and that budgetary discipline had been breached. It placed responsibility both on recipients that hired Semancová’s company and on the ministry.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Affected recovery-plan projects | Three |
| Unexpected state-budget cost identified by NKÚ | 82,988,686.09 koruna |
| Already paid to Semancová’s clients | Almost 50 million koruna |
| Vykáň payment examined by auditors | 7.2 million koruna |
| Siptrade fee charged to Vykáň | 300,000 koruna |
| Basic information-law response period | 15 days |
The ministry used these funds from the state budget unlawfully.
WHY IT MATTERS
Grant applicants, advisers and contracting authorities must keep roles separate when an adviser can influence the assessment of funding for which their own firm prepares applications. The case also shows why the funding source matters: when an EU or recovery-plan payment is withdrawn, a project may still be paid from domestic funds, but the legal basis and responsibility for that replacement funding must be clear.
Reported from seznamzpravy.cz, 2026-10-15. The Tender Wire is published by Otnox.
