In September, NIK President Krzysztof Kwiatkowski presented the Director of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine (NAPA), Yuri Kovbasiuk, with an official invitation to Poland for a group of the Academy’s best students. At the beginning of December, five young Ukrainians took part in a series of seminars, meetings and workshops in Warsaw and in Cracow.
Statements of visitors from Ukraine
Ukrainian students
The visitors had a closer look at the functioning of the Polish Supreme Audit Office, both at the central and local levels. In the course of meetings at the Polish National School of Public Administration with its Director Jan Pastwa, the Ukrainian students got familiar with the Polish civil service system and with the law on its functioning.
The Advisor to NIK President Wojciech Misiąg – in the past involved in the reform of local governments in Poland and currently a consultant of the Ukrainian authorities in this regard – discussed the Polish public finance system with the guests from Ukraine. During the meeting with the Director General of the Province Office of Małopolska, Małgorzata Bywanis-Jodlińska, NAPA students got familiar with career paths of civil servants in Poland, administration reforms as well as the system of internships and traineeships organised by Małopolska Governor.
These are only some elements of an extensive programme prepared by the Polish SAI for future Ukrainian officials. “The visit inspired me to think about big changes. The knowledge obtained in Poland will certainly help us improve public service in Ukraine” – Viktoriia Prykhodchenko from NAPA evaluated the visit to Poland and said openly that together with her friends she wants to contribute to building a modern, European state in Ukraine. Otherwise, for Viktoriia Strutynska the most important thing was that she could learn more about Poland and Polish people. She admits that the picture of Poland she had before was based mainly on media reports. “Now we know much more about our closest neighbours and we understand you better. We have a broader perspective. The one before our stay in Poland and now are very different. And we appreciate that.”
NIK supports reforms in Ukraine in many different ways. Wojciech Misiąg, Advisor to NIK President is a co-author of the Ukrainian Budget Code, which is a law defining relations between the state budget and the local budget. He has also delivered a lecture in the Information Centre „Maidan Monitoring” on relations between local governments and state authorities. NIK Vice-President, Wojciech Kutyła, is also involved in direct support for Ukraine. Recently at the invitation of the Open University Council in Maidan he gave a lecture in Kyiv titled: “How the civil society may control public authorities – perspective of the Polish Supreme Audit Office” during which he presented a spectrum of institutional solutions supporting civil society organisations.
