The Supreme Audit Office of Poland has recently published two audits to which they would like to draw the EUROSAI community’s attention. The first audit deals with the broadband Internet infrastructure construction and the other one with ticking bombs at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. You can find the full versions of the audits in Polish, together with their summaries in English, on the EUROSAI audit database.

Below are links and short annotations to both audits:

Ticking bombs at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

The Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) conducted the audit on the pollution in the Baltic Sea depths. Both the maritime administration and the environmental protection authorities in Poland did not recognize the threats resulting from oil-derived fuel and chemical weapons being sunk in wrecks at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. They also did not assess the risk associated with them and did not effectively counteract the identified and localized threats. This could lead to an ecological catastrophe on an unprecedented scale in Europe. Shipwrecks such as: Stuttgart and Franken, dating back to World War II, pose the greatest threat to the safety of citizens. Fuel is already coming out of the first one, and the second, due to corrosion, can collapse at any moment and cause a huge ecological disaster. In addition, in the area of the Gdańsk Deep, at least several dozen tons of ammunition and chemical warfare agents may lie at the bottom of the sea, including one of the most dangerous sulfur mustards. Fishermen and sunbathers have been burned several times since the war.

Macro subsidies and micro effects of building broadband internet in Poland

The Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) conducted the audit on the construction of the broadband Internet infrastructure in Poland. Only after the Supreme Audit Office pointed out irregularities in the supervision of the project, the voivodeship board started ad hoc inspections at the project implementation site. An incorrectly conducted competition for the allocation of over PLN 1 billion, failure to enforce contractual obligations from project implementers and long delays in investments - this is how NIK evaluates the construction of broadband internet in the Lubelskie Voivodship. The project’s implementation, financed by the European Regional Development Fund, attracted the attention of the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF. The results of the audit also indicate that the implementation of another goal resulting from the European Digital Agenda is at risk - ensuring access to the network with a capacity of at least 100 Mb/s to all households in Poland by 2025. The audit carried out by the NIK shows that over two and a half years after the start of the investment, less than 4% of the target network was ready, which covered approx. 4% of the planned number of households. In some places, the new network duplicated the existing one, and almost half of the power poles made available for its installation, their owner, i.e., PGE Dystrybucja, planned to modernize or liquidate within 10 years.