Donald Tusk and his supporters for many years rightly criticized the Law and Justice organization for bringing funds beyond the authoritative budget. Ironically, however, erstwhile they themselves came to power, they began to practice the same method that they had previously so powerfully opposed. Sławomir Dudek, president of the Public Finance Institute, expresses his breakdown in this case.
The usage of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego and various funds is problematic, which was a characteristic point of criticism during the PiS party's rule. An example of this was the COVID-19 Anti-Activity Fund, which in fact acted as a ‘budget within the budget’, allowing free spending without appropriate supervision.
Currently, everything points to the continuation of this trend. Both BGK and the Ministry of Finance avoid a clear answer to money.pl questions on this issue. Although no authoritative message of change of approach has been issued, it is known that the extra-budget funds will remain.
Sławomir Dudek, president of the Institute of Public Finance, commented on this situation in an interview with money.pl, stated: “If BGK’s position is in line with the Ministry of Finance and represents the authoritative line of the fresh government, it is outrageous and wakes my breakdown. This means in practice that BGK and MF keep a parallel budget, which violates Article 219 of the Constitution and threatens the regulation of law rules in public finances."
Article 219 of the Constitution indicates that the state budget for a given year must be passed by the Sejm in the form of a budget bill, which means that BGK funds, amounting to hundreds of billions of PLN, operate outside this regulation.
– I would remind you that in the application for the Court of State for Adam Glapiński, the applicant and 190 Members who supported him compose explicitly that maintaining extra-budget funds in BGK and PFR is unconstitutional. We read in this paper that the NBP, while financing BGK and PFR debt, was active in subsuming the real budget deficit. If this is to proceed now, any authoritative who puts his hand on it should ask whether the Court of State application will always affect him and his – warns the economist.
He points out that he is amazed by the “financial cleaning process” in Poland. It points out that in this way "we will inactive endure more Polish debt with this calculated EU method".
– The government may attach financial plans for funds to justify the budget bill, but this is painting grass green due to the fact that the justification has no legal rank explains.
Why do both the Law and the Law and Justice Government benefit from “two budgets” in fact? If they had done everything transparently, according to the Constitution, it would shortly have been revealed that we were exceeding the constitutional debt limit of 60%. If this had happened, a balanced budget would should be established. He didn't want to hear Morawiecki, now he doesn't want to hear Tusk. So we will proceed to spend more than we actually have. And it doesn't truly bother anyone. However, far - reaching consequences will be lamented.
Daniel Głogowski
Expert in his field – Publicist, author and social activist. The first articles were published in 1999 for global publishers. For more than 30 years, he has gained his experience through cooperation with the largest editorial offices. In his articles, he seeks to address controversial topics and present first viewpoints that allowed for a deeper knowing of the issues discussed.
Continued here:
When they were not at the trough, they criticized the Law and Justice for taking money out of the budget. Now they're doing the same thing.
