There is no doubt that the so-called Sawicki Act, adopted at the last session of the Sejm in 2011, was supposed to be "electoral fuel", believes Tomasz Ognisty, head of the Opole "Solidarity" RI, who has been fighting for land to expand family farms for two decades. Today, the "boomerang has returned", because the same PO and PSL team is in power, but the actions of KOWR do not provide any certainty that this team intends to ensure the implementation of its own act – notes an agricultural activist from the Opole region in an interview with the editor-in-chief of Farmer Radosław Iwański.
Decisions above the law?
Ognisty draws attention to the bizarre situation in which some of the large tenants acted in accordance with the law, incurred certain costs and made exclusions, while others did not agree to the exclusion of land, but due to the government's recent decisions, they may not suffer any consequences for this.
-There are some lessees who clearly have a strong lobby in KOWR or the Ministry of Agriculture. The Director General of KOWR suddenly introduced an order in April this year, which gives the directors of local branches the possibility to postpone the handover of real estate for another year to companies whose lease agreements expired this year – says Tomasz Ognisty.
The state will lose millions
Trade unionists from Solidarity RI visited Minister Siekierski on this matter, because in their opinion the actions of the Director General of KOWR are at least strange, since his order questions the provisions of the act.
-Why is someone trying to continue to leave the land in the hands of these lessees by some order, and in addition not changing their previous rents, and these are rents at the level of 4 dt based on agreements from the 1990s? If KOWR took these lands, and did not even have time to allocate them and reported them for subsidies as fallow land, the State Treasury would still earn tens of millions more – argues Ognisty. -The Ministry of Finance loses tens of millions on the decisions of the KOWR director and this is incomprehensible.
Unconstitutional law?
Ognisty also cites examples of actions by large tenants aimed at hindering the implementation of the Exclusion Act.
-After 13 years of this act being in force, one of the tenants, who did not return 30% of the land, reports the case to the Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Commissioner refers the case to the Constitutional Tribunal. We are starting to wonder whether we live in a normal country, because how can you appeal a law that has been in force until now after 13 years? We cannot imagine the Tribunal ruling that this act is inconsistent with the Constitution, because it would expose the State Treasury to billions in compensation.
More in the interview between Farmer’s editor-in-chief Radosław Iwański and Tomasz Ognisty below:
