The Accounts Chamber said 42% of payments were “effectively paid” in 2022

The Court of Auditors (TdC) indicated that by the end of 2022, 42% of payments provided to the Recovery and Resilience Plan had been “effectively paid” to direct and ultimate beneficiaries, but pointed to “inconsistencies” in mission structure data.

“As of December 31, 2022, the amounts of payments provided by the PRR [Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência]42% (€1,408.9 million) were actually paid to direct and ultimate beneficiaries,” said TdC in a report published today.

About 1.390 million euros have already reached intermediate beneficiaries.

At the end of 2022, the European Commission transferred 3,321.3 million euros to Portugal, 20% of the allocations were agreed with the European Union.

Of this amount, €1,162.4 million was transferred in 2022.

According to the report “Financial flows between Portugal and the European Union and the execution of European funds in 2022”, the level of contractualization of investments between the Mission Reconstruction Portugal (EMRP) and direct and intermediate beneficiaries was 100%.

“However, the provision of PRR to these beneficiaries amounted to €1,409.8 million, representing 8.5% of the total planned distribution,” he said.

TdC also emphasized that at the end of November 2023, according to EMRP data, the contractualization of the updated PRR distribution is 76%, and payments to beneficiaries are 20% of the approved amount.

However, as he noted, this data was not verified and “inconsistencies” were found.

A monitoring report submitted on 31 December 2022 showed that the approved investments amounted to €10,949 million, but checks carried out concluded that this amount included €1,226.1 million, citing “five investments/sub-funds whose approved amount was higher than this amount.” concluded between the beneficiary and the UMRP.”

EMRP said these were “approval situations for appropriations and reporting discrepancies for two investments, which have since been corrected.”

TdC noted that given that these amounts exceed the funding for the RDP, the situations in question need to be adjusted for monitoring purposes “to ensure the reliability of the data in monitoring the level of implementation of the RDP and its appropriate dissemination.”

On the other hand, a “discrepancy of €58.3 million” was found between payment orders issued and paid to direct and intermediate beneficiaries (€2,741.4 million) and the amount of payments made to direct beneficiaries and intermediary beneficiaries to final beneficiaries with values ​​​​and transit (2,799.8 million euros).

“On a controversial basis, EMRP clarified that these cases, relating to eight investments/sub-investments out of 139 planned, correspond to situations in which the intermediate beneficiaries ended up paying amounts in excess of the amounts requested and provided by EMRP,” he said.

For TdC, the use of funds from the budget of intermediate beneficiaries that do not come from the RRR to support payments to final beneficiaries “should be separately allocated in the RRR monitoring reports so as not to call into question the adequate monitoring of funding from the RRR [Mecanismo de Recuperação e Resiliência]this Mission Structure, as well as guarantee the reliability and transparency of the data.”

On September 22, the European Commission approved the revision of Portugal’s PRR, which now stands at €22,200 million.

This change includes financial allocations from the European energy program RepowerEU (€704 million), as well as what was not used from the Brexit adjustment reserve (€81 million).

The PRR, which runs until 2026, intends to implement a package of reforms and investments to restore economic growth.

The plan aims to not only reverse the damage caused by Covid-19, but also support investment and job creation.