The prosecutor’s office points to the insufficient human and technological resources of the Recovery and Resilience Plan

The Public Ministry (MP) said that despite improvements in management under the Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PRR), “inadequacies remain” in terms of human and technological resources.

“Despite improvements recorded in the management of the PRR, resource constraints remain,” the government ministry noted in its monitoring report prepared by the plan’s audit and monitoring committee.

Human resources are at stake, particularly in specialist areas such as engineering, as well as IT and technology resources to ensure that the risk of double funding is “adequately mitigated”.

The prosecutor’s office also considered that the Inspectorate General of Finance (IGF) did not provide a “global and adequate assessment” of the internal control system (SCI) of the PDP.

The IGF conducted an SCI audit of the Rebuild Portugal mission structure and intermediate beneficiaries.

According to the report, following the reprogramming of the PRR, the new council decision states that the European Commission considers the Portuguese PRR’s internal control system to be “globally adequate”, although it has shortcomings, namely a lack of fraud risk assessment and insufficient provisions for “cross-checking information on receipt European funds to prevent and detect double financing.”

Regarding the shortcomings in the SCI structure of the Restore Portugal mission, the MP stated that these are “obstacles to the implementation of its tasks related to the reasonable guarantee of the prevention, detection and correlation of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest and double financing.” .

The MP also highlighted among the shortcomings the lack or insufficiency of control procedures to ensure compliance with the rules, in particular those relating to the prevention of conflicts of interest, fraud and corruption, deviations in the application of internal control procedures, the lack of a horizontal fraud risk assessment and the lack of comprehensive training to support payment requests that should be presented to Brussels.

Added to this are omissions in the description of procedures, non-compliance with financial transparency rules, restrictions on the nature of information, and the lack of a plan for on-site inspections.

As for the GCI of intermediate beneficiaries, the deputy named a set of shortcomings, which include the lack of technical capabilities of some beneficiaries, lack of training in relevant areas, shortcomings in assessing the risk of fraud, and “difficulties in effectively disseminating instructions.” about the procedures to be carried out” by the beneficiaries, as well as the “lack of evidence” of the procedures carried out in the framework of preventing conflicts of interest.

In addition, the implementation of inadequate procedures, lack of adequate administrative controls to ensure beneficiaries use the “checklist to reduce the risk of double funding/fraud and lack of substantiation”, improper implementation of procedures and failure to conduct on-site checks.

The deputy’s report will be sent to the PRR Audit and Monitoring Commission, the Portuguese Restoration Mission, the Agency for Development and Cohesion, the National Monitoring Commission and the Directorate of Planning, Strategy, Evaluation and International Relations of the Ministry of Finance.

On September 22, the European Commission approved the reprogramming of Portugal’s PRR, which now stands at €22.2 billion.

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.