The Ministry of Industry and Trade is a central state administration body; in October 2026 the Supreme Audit Office published an audit of its support for start-ups.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade funds start-up support through the government agency CzechInvest. The ministers of industry during the audited period were Karel Havlíček (ANO), followed by Jozef Síkela and later Lukáš Vlček (both STAN).[1][2]
Audit of start-up support in 2021 to 2025
On 5 October 2026 the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) published the results of its audit of start-up support in 2021 to 2025. The ministry provided the CzechInvest agency with CZK 914 million, from both the state budget and European sources, namely the National Recovery Plan and the Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovations for Competitiveness. The money was intended, for example, for founding companies, their entry into foreign markets or technology testing.[1][2]
The NKÚ found that for most projects the ministry did not monitor whether the objectives were met and recorded only the number of supported projects or made do with incomplete data. For support from the National Recovery Plan worth CZK 276 million it monitored only the number of supported entities, which according to the NKÚ says nothing about the effects. For the Start-up Support project, which received CZK 195 million from the operational programme, monitoring relied on data from fewer than half of the start-ups, so the benefits reported by CzechInvest are, according to the NKÚ, distorted. According to the auditors, CzechInvest did not consistently enforce the mandatory data and the ministry approved incomplete summary reports.[1][2]
The only audited project for which the ministry monitors the benefits is Technology Incubation, which by the end of 2025 had received CZK 443 million from the state budget. According to the NKÚ, CzechInvest ensured key activities over a long period mainly through employees of a staffing agency, which made the project CZK 21 million more expensive. The NKÚ described this spending as wasteful.[1][2]
Chronology
- — In an audit of start-up support in 2021 to 2025, the Supreme Audit Office found that the Ministry of Industry and Trade provided the CzechInvest agency with CZK 914 million and for most projects did not monitor whether the set objectives were met. → Seznam Zprávy Echo24
Pages linking here
- Award for the revitalisation of the Těšínské divadlo in the Moravian-Silesian Region construction competition
- NKÚ audit of start-up support in 2021–2025
Sources
- Seznam Zprávy — 5 October 2026
- Echo24 — 5 October 2026