At NIK headquarters, Commissioner Reynders talked to NIK President Marian Banaś and other representatives of the Supreme Audit Office of Poland about its activity and pressure on its independence. The EU Commissioner’s delegation listened to the report on the SIRAM procedure, its follow-up and the support granted to NIK by the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and the European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (EUROSAI). The EU Commissioner’s delegation was informed about actions taken by the Polish government to monitor and implement findings from NIK reports. Statistics of NIK reports to the prosecutor’s office were presented as well as relevant measures of the prosecutor’s office.
NIK representatives also shared with the EU Commissioner NIK’s standpoint on the functioning of key Polish institutions for budget auditing. The report was presented on the detection and prevention of possible misuse and embezzlement of public funds, including EU funds. For example, the NIK report “Performance of tasks by the Fund for Victims Support and Post-Penitentiary Support – the Justice Fund” and the report “Analysis of the performance of the state budget and monetary policy assumptions” were discussed.
NIK President Marian Banaś closed the statements of NIK representatives, addressing the challenges and threats to NIK’s independence.
The meeting was finished with a debate of the EU Commissioner’s delegation and NIK representatives about work and independence of NIK. All the EU representatives agreed that it is a priority to maintain NIK’s independence at the moment, particularly in terms of spending funds from the National Reconstruction Plan.
[1] SIRAM (Supreme Audit Institutions Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism) is a quick-response tool for threats to SAI independence, developed by the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI). This is a four-stage process, which examines in detail any independence threats and assuring advisory and support for SAIs and their heads to whom the threats are related. It also covers informing and raising awareness of domestic and international stakeholders and then their real involvement in the elimination of existing threats.
