Polish Supreme Audit Office says COVID-19 spending must be transparent

The head of Poland's Supreme Audit Office warned the government of the dangers of a lack of transparency in public finances on Thursday, saying it had used "unprecedented" means to keep spending on the COVID-19 pandemic out of the 2020 budget.

The head of Poland's Supreme Audit Office warned the government of the dangers of a lack of transparency in public finances on Thursday, saying it had used "unprecedented" means to keep spending on the COVID-19 pandemic out of the 2020 budget. The nationalist government has used bonds issued by institutions such as the national development bank BGK or state fund PFR - but secured by the state - to finance much of its spending on helping the economy through the pandemic.

This has helped the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party avoid including such spending in the state budget. "Last year, the government used unprecedented mechanisms to push spending out of the budget," said NIK President Marian Banas, a former finance minister.

Without giving details, he said past events in Poland and "painful experiences of other countries ... show that creative accounting and low transparency of public finances can cause a serious economic crisis, the victims of which are citizens." The finance ministry rejected the criticism, saying it publishes "detailed and reliable" data on public debt.

"Placing the anti-crisis support outside the public finance sector ... resulted in the aid being easier to implement and meant it could be provided almost immediately, without unnecessary bureaucracy and excessive procedures," the ministry said in an emailed statement. Banas briefly served as finance minister in a PiS-led government in 2019 but was not a member of the ruling party and has criticised it in his current role.

In May, he asked prosecutors to launch a criminal investigation against Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other government officials over the organisation of the 2020 presidential election.