Former staff member of Romani association in Czech Republic says regional government is also responsible for its predicament

Marie Štajnerová, a former human resources manager for the Liberec Romani Association (Liberecké romské sdružení – LRS) has made a statement to the daily Liberecký deník about the fact that the Czech Revenue Authority is currently investigating the association over its allegedly incorrect use of funding from the “Preventive social services in Liberec Region” project. Štajnerová rejects the assertion that the association improperly handled the money entrusted to it.

Štajnerová said she believes the problems have to do with faulty invoicing for reimbursement of expenses and an insufficient justification of the need for some of the things that were purchased. “Ignorance may have played a role here. When I worked as an accountant at a high school I know how difficult it was to categorize items correctly. Accounting is difficult, there were many items to account for, and they may just have been poorly categorized. However, I can say that nothing was purchased above and beyond the needs of the LRS,” Štajnerová said.

The LRS has been criticized for purchasing a “fussball” game and an iPad tablet computer, but Štajnerová rejects the notion that these purchases were improper. “The iPad was used by the main coordinator because his position and responsibilities were such that his work required one. The fussball games and karaoke equipment also make sense when you realize that the LRS ran several drop-in centers. (…) To attract [children] to the centers and get them to stick around you have to offer them something interesting. Everything was for the clients,” Štajnerová said.

The former HR manager said that envy on the part of another Romani association in the region might lie behind the ending of the relationship between the LRS and the Liberec Regional Authority. Moreover, the regional government itself was the recipient of the funding and it, not the LRS, was supposed to have performed oversight of the project management and monitored its financial accounting. “…I prepared the materials for the audits myself several times. We were audited left and right and they always found everything in order,” Štajnerová said.

Pavel Petráček, the Liberec Regional Councilor for Social Welfare, does not consider Ms Štajnerová’s point of view to be completely objective. “We held several personal meetings with LRS o. s. where we repeatedly pointed out to them that the cost of their service provision was too high. Unfortunately, those meetings did not have positive results. The Liberec Region was forced to end all of its contractual relationships with LRS o.s. as of the end of last year in order not to endanger the financing and implementation of the whole project, the operations of the other social services providers throughout the region, and future approval of the project’s continuation,” Petráček told the daily.

However, Petráček does not agree with media reports alleging that the LRS made unjustified use of CZK 26 million. “The amount of CZK 26 million which the media are reporting is the amount that LRS o.s. received to provide the social services of a drop-in facility for children and youth and a field social work program in Liberec Region, but that is not the total amount that was spent incorrectly by the social service providers. Only the Revenue Authority can determine the final amount of the incorrect expenditure,” Councilor Petráček clarified.