Minister Klimczak hides the communication exclusion study for PLN 4 million.
Mr Michał Moskal (PiS) powerfully criticises the Ministry of Infrastructure for systematically hiding a key communication exclusion study in Poland, which cost taxpayers over PLN 4 million. Although the analysis was completed in April, and the study was delivered to the Ministry on 30 June, the Ministry's management under Minister Dariusz Klimczak inactive refuses to make it public, utilizing absurd bureaucratic excuses.
"This is simply a scandalous disregard for citizens who have funded this study from their own taxes. The Ministry treats society as tiny children who are allegedly incapable to realize the results of investigation into their own communication problems," says Michał Moskal, author of 2 interpellings on this issue.
The paper hidden by the Ministry is "Analysis of the scale of communication exclusion in the area of Poland with recommendations of legislative changes in the context of public mass transport" – a task initiated by the erstwhile Minister of Infrastructure Andrzej Adamczyk in 2021 under the GOSPOSTRATEG programme. The survey conducted by a consortium of Polish universities under the direction of Poznan University of Technology was to supply key data on the problem affecting millions of Poles, especially agrarian residents.
Communication exclusion means the deficiency of access to public transport which prevents or importantly impedes access to work, school, doctor or office. According to preliminary estimates, about 28 percent of the population in the country are affected, or over 10.5 million people. In agrarian areas, the situation is even more dramatic, where the exclusion rate is as advanced as 54 percent, meaning that more than half of the agrarian population has serious problems with access to public transport.
In consequence to Moskal's interpellings, Undersecretary of State Piotr Malebszak presented a series of blunt arguments to justify hiding the report. The Ministry argues, inter alia, that ‘the publication of incomplete data or incorrect explanation of the results may lead to unjustified action adversely affecting the scale of communication exclusion’. The Ministry besides argues that a study counting “more than 1,770 pages of improvement without annexes” requires specified a long analysis that it cannot be made public even a fewer months after receipt.
"These arguments are pure manipulation and arrogance. The Ministry suggests that citizens are besides stupid to realize the results of the investigation they paid for themselves. At the same time, he is lying, claiming that the Act on Access to Public Information does not oblige papers financed by the state budget to be made available," commented Mr Moskal.
The ministry's position on legal information obligations is peculiarly outrageous. Undersecretary Malebszak falsely claims that the Member's message of the work to make papers financed by the State budget available is ‘not confirmed in the legislation’. This is evidently not actual – the Public Information Act clearly states that public papers should be available to citizens.
The Ministry besides uses manipulative rhetoric, suggesting that "it does not exclude the presentation of the results of the work in the form of a presentation", while the associate explicitly requests access to a full study alternatively than a truncated presentation prepared by officials as they see it.
In the replies of the Ministry of Infrastructure, the striking is the full absence of circumstantial deadlines for the publication of the report. Undersecretary Malebszak repeatedly uses evasive wording specified as “after detailed data analysis”, “after formal acceptance” or “after the Ministry has taken that decision”.
The worst aspect of the full case is the complete disregard by the Social Ministry of the importance of the problem of communication exclusion. This problem has a dramatic impact on the lives of millions of Poles, limiting their opportunities for professional development, access to education, wellness care or participation in social life. Meanwhile, the Ministry considers this dramatic social problem as the subject of bureaucratic games and political manipulation.
"Communication exclusion is not an abstract statistical category for hiding in clerks' drawers. They're circumstantial people who can't get to work, children who can't get to school, sick people who can't get to a doctor, older people who are cut off from the world. And Minister Klimczak and his squad make it a material to hide from the public," he emphasized with emotion.
MP Moskal announces a decisive decision forward to force the publication of the study on the Ministry. “We will not drop this case by a millimeter. Citizens have a sacred right to know what they pay for their taxes. We will usage all the parliamentary tools available to force the ministry to comply with the law," the MP powerfully declares.
Photo in the title: photograph by Tomasz Chmielewski
