The head of the Opava building authority is worried about employee departures

Opava - The head of the Opava building authority, Hana Vaculová, does not believe that the digital construction management system, namely the Construction Management Information System (ISSŘ), will be fully functional by the end of August. The official is also concerned about the possible departure of employees who may lose patience with this new program. Vaculová stated this today to ČTK.

"We do not believe that the system will start running. There is no indication of that. The situation has been the same for several weeks. We continuously hear from the ministry (for regional development) in the media repeated claims that the system works, only minor issues are being fixed," she stated. However, she has the impression that either no one can fix the system, or the ISSŘ is unfixable.

Her subordinates have not left the office yet. "If the current situation continues, it cannot be ruled out that some employees will leave, and the reason will indeed be the digital construction management. Most employees at the Opava building authority have worked there for twenty years or more; they are experienced employees who did not plan to leave, but they all agree that the building authorities have never been in such a terrible situation before," she said.

According to her, the office is overwhelmed with applications submitted by June 30, and new applications submitted since July 1, coinciding with the launch of the new system, are increasing. Currently, officials are not processing those applications due to the non-functional Construction Management Information System. "We are processing applications submitted by June 30 under the old building law in the original Agenda Information System (AIS), and because they were mostly incomplete, we are asking builders for additional information and suspending the proceedings. However, we have not yet gotten to all of them," she said.

She added that applications submitted after this date are currently not being processed due to issues with the ISSŘ. "However, we are preparing to process at least applications for schools and kindergartens. We will handle these applications in the original AIS. We are aware that according to the ministry, this is an incorrect official procedure; we are supposed to process the applications in the ISSŘ, but since that is not possible, we have no choice but to use the original AIS to approve these constructions. We do not want to allow schools and kindergartens not to open in September due to the non-functional system," she said.

Both she and her colleagues hope that the ministry will agree to a backup solution. This involves providing an interface of the ISSŘ to building authorities, which will then provide this interface to companies operating AIS with them. "Both systems will thus connect, and everything will start working. The statutory city of Opava and the Opava City Hall have already formally requested this interface from Minister Ivan Bartoš. So far, there has been no response," she concluded.

Employees of building authorities have been complaining about the system's dysfunction since its launch. Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) stated that the ministry is addressing a number of problematic issues with suppliers for updates. He has increased the technical support team. This month, the head of TOP 09 MPs, Jan Jakob, said in the program Partie Plus on CNN Prima News that if the system is not perfect by the end of the summer, he expects Bartoš to take personal responsibility. Representatives of the opposition movements ANO and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) have called for Bartoš's resignation.