SERBIA: The republic has not yet developed accurate records on real estate at its disposal

The Republic of Serbia has not yet developed accurate records on the real estate at its disposal, although the Law on Public Property was adopted in 2011. Total of 230,000 real estates were recorded, but estimates on the final number of all types of real estate cannot be determined – that was presented in the Performance Audit Report "Efficiency of the Information System for the Public Property Register" of the State Audit Institution of Serbia (SAI).

This is the first IT audit report which, according to Dr. Dusko Pejovic, SAI President and Auditor General, was conducted for two reasons - previous findings of audit reports and findings from the Performance Audit Report "Management of Real Estate Owned by the Republic of Serbia", published by SAI in 2015.

The goal of the audit, which was conducted during 2019, was to assess the efficiency of the information system of the Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate, adequacy of the Application, verification of the timeliness and integrity of recorded data and assessment of the overall security of the information system.

The key message of this audit is that the information system of the Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate does not allow recording of data in a fully efficient manner and that users have not taken all necessary steps to record data in the register. Insufficient user activity and inadequate IT management did not lead to the fulfillment of the basic goal of the Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate, which are comprehensive, unique and up-to-date records. Although the information system for the Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate of the Republic Property Directorate of the Republic of Serbia meets the prescribed obligations, users did not recognize its usability for asset management purposes and they did not enter data on all real estate partially or completely. The existing manner of Application access, which includes mandatory use of electronic certificate, made it difficult or impossible for a number of users to work, because the persons in charge of entry do not have an electronic certificate, or there were technical problems with its usage.

Press conference on publishing the first IT audit report of SAI Serbia

The causes of the minimal usage of the information system of the Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate are insufficient capacities, deficiencies in the software solution, inadequate training of users.

In 2016, a public electronic Register of Publicly Owned Real Estate was established, but it is not updated regularly.

Although the information system has been improved several times in the previous three years, this has not led to the desired results, so there is room for additional improvements to the entire system, both in the Application and in the organization of the employees in institutions in charge of these activities, and also in certain activities performed by the Republic Property Directorate.

English version of the audit report is available at https://www.dri.rs/audit/summary-reports/archive-2019.461.html