- On August 2, 2024, the Ministry of Environmental Protection submitted a notification to the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw about the possibility of committing a crime involving public officials exceeding their powers and failing to fulfill their duties, including the obligation to supervise the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management.
- The notification concerns an attempt to create a new, parallel monitoring of surface water threats, which was undertaken in 2023. In this matter, on January 3, 2023, an Agreement was concluded between the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and on June 5, 2023 – a co-financing agreement between the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and IRŚ-PIB.
- The total cost of the project was to be PLN 250 million. Monitoring carried out by IRŚ-PIB was not part of the State Environmental Monitoring.
– When we joined the Ministry of Environmental Protection in December 2023, we inherited from our predecessors the amount of PLN 250 million contracted for an entity that had nothing to do with water monitoring before – the Institute of Inland Fisheries – National Research Institute. The monitoring system was only on paper – without a legal basis – said Urszula Zielińska, Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment, during the conference.
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The creation of a new surface water monitoring system was carried out uneconomically
In the Ministry's opinion, attempts to create a new, parallel monitoring of surface water threats undertaken in 2023 were carried out in an inadvisable and uneconomical manner, because such a system should be part of the State Environmental Monitoring, and the contract for its implementation should guarantee the feasibility of the project.
We need monitoring of the Oder, as well as monitoring of other rivers. In Poland, State Environmental Monitoring is described in great detail and regulated by the Act on the State Environmental Inspection. This Act regulates the amount that is allocated annually for this monitoring – it is PLN 98 million. It also regulates which entity is responsible for and conducts monitoring – this is the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection – noted Urszula Zielińska.
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Was this a successful attempt to siphon off government money?
According to the deputy head of the ministry, in this context, the cost of establishing surface water monitoring in the country should also be assessed and revised. The quarter of a billion zlotys that was to be allocated to the creation of the system on the basis of the agreement between the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and the agreement between the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and IRŚ-PIB concluded in 2023 is a huge expense in the sphere of public finances, incomparable to the amount allocated for the maintenance of the entire State Environmental Monitoring.
The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management has contracted PLN 250 million for permanent monitoring of surface waters and the early warning system in 2023. Under the agreement with IRŚ-PIB, 825 measurement stations were to be created at the end of 2024, including 325 fixed points and 500 mobile points. As of mid-July this year. is that 46 of the 325 permanent stations have been built. Taking into account the results of the inspections conducted by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and the Supreme Audit Office, as the new management board of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, we see a huge risk of failure to implement this project and failure to achieve ecological and material goals. For this reason, on May 15, 2024, we suspended the contract with IRŚ-PIB, said Dorota Zawadzka-Stępniak, president of the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management.
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