2024-07-02 21:26 update: 2024-07-04, 14:59
Photo PAP/Piotr Nowak
The National Institute of Remembrance (IPN) 'wastefully' spent nearly PLN 18 million (EUR 4.2 mln) from state coffers, said the deputy head of the Supreme Audit Office (NIK), during a press conference on Tuesday.
The IPN is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives, as well as the investigation of Nazi and communist crimes committed between 1917 and 1990.
The report stated that in 2023, the institute disbursed PLN 538.76 million (EUR 124.86 mln), however, almost PLN 18 million (EUR 4.17 mln) was spent "in violation of the law, unreliably, or uneconomically."
Michal Jedrzejczyk, the vice-president of the Supreme Audit Office, added that IPN budget for 2023 was PLN 109 million (EUR 25.3 mln) higher than in the previous year.
"In addition to the increase in expenditure on salaries, expenditure on the use of new technologies had also increased significantly," he noted. In his view, "the IPN was not up to the task," leading NIK to issue a negative assessment of the IPN's spending for the first time in its history.
According to the auditors, the institute had mismanaged funding on, among other things, the unfavourable rental of premises in central Warsaw and a license to a RPG board game that did not generate significant interest.
The Office had issued an appeal for the institute to exercise tighter budgetary management in the future and had notified the prosecutors of offenses in four cases.
IPN, however, called the findings "highly subjective" and argued that its excessive spending was due to its "popularisation of history." (PAP)
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