Audit no. S/24/005/LRZ
In June 2018, the Minister of Culture signed an agreement with the Lux Veritatis Foundation to build and co-administer the museum, despite the fact that the Foundation not only had no experience in the museum activity but also lacked exhibits needed to open a museum. Besides, the Ministry did not commission any analyses to justify the founding of a cultural institution of this kind, although according to NIK this project was burdened with a high risk of failure from the very start.
By the end of the audit, the Ministry spent on the museum construction nearly PLN 149 million, which is over twice as much as planned initially. Besides, more than PLN 57 million was spent to develop the concept of the permanent exposition and carry it out comprehensively, although the agreement did not provide for such expenditures. It included a clause, though, saying that in case the museum is liquidated, the Foundation will not be obliged to return the expenditures incurred by the Minister, under two conditions. First, the museum activity needs to be run for ten years minimum (regardless of the form) and second, the collections belonging to the museum have to be maintained in whole and exposed. The agreement also stated that the museum would operate by the end of 2023, and its future functioning would be determined by the consent of both parties, which was contrary to the Act on Cultural Activity.
NIK has also established that the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage had the investment construction project at his disposal neither before nor after signing the agreement. The agreement scope assumed for public financing was defined with glaring incompetence. The erected facility designated for the museum covered rooms and spaces not related to the museum activity. The construction costs included e.g. two event halls (one of them with over 800 seats). Neither the agreement nor the museum charter provided for the construction of the so-called collective residential area. However, 15 apartments covering approx. 750 m2 on three floors were built, making up 7% of the total investment space and about 28% in proportion to the assumed exposition space.
According to NIK the agreement showed clearly that the museum is only part of the project carried out by the Lux Veritatis Foundation. At the same time, the Minister accepted the fact that the museum would acquire only temporary right to use the land on which it was to be erected (by the end of 2022). Until the end of the audit, this land belonged to the Lux Veritatis Foundation or was in its perpetual usufruct, which made the Foundation blatantly privileged. In case of potential expiration of land use agreements, the museum will lose the right to use this land and thus will lose the ownership of the museum built for public funds.
NIK also points out that the Ministry of Culture did not verify how the Foundation used the targeted subsidy to carry out the investment and limited its supervision to analysing the statements sent by the Foundation. The audit findings show that the museum could be built bigger than specified in the agreement, also covering plots of land other than indicated in the documents attached.
Besides, the Ministry did not verify the historical, content-related and material value of the collections based on which the Foundation intended to create a permanent exhibition. NIK stands in a position that the collections were not sufficient to start the exhibition activity – as set out in the agreement and the charter - in an assumed, very broad scope “covering over 1000-year history of Christian Poland, expanding on the events and profiles of great Poles from medieval to contemporary times – with special consideration for the teaching of St. John Paul II and its impact on the fate of Poland, Europe and the World”. At the same time, in the agreement the Foundation declared contributing museum resources, such as e.g.: 18 relics of saints and blessed as well as video and audio collections containing interviews with persons (or their close ones) engaged in rescuing Jews during the Second World War and a collection of documents based on which the list of Poles murdered for that aid was created.
The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage did not commission any analyses to justify accepting these collections for the museum’s needs or an assessment of their value. On the other hand, the valuation presented to the Ministry exceeded PLN 88 million and – according to NIK auditors – it was carried out in an extraordinarily simplified way. The valuation did not refer in any way to the content of the collections proving their unique nature and accounting for the Minister’s involvement in establishing the cultural institution on their basis.
In the course of the construction it turned out, though, that in response to the Foundation’s proposal the Ministry financed the museum which had nothing to show to visitors. The reason was that the Foundation not only failed to gather a proper collection of exhibits but also lacked a concept what museum pieces should be gathered and how to present them.
In 2020-2023, the Ministry planned to spend nearly PLN 99 million to design and carry out the exhibition. Finally, it spent almost PLN 57.3 million. In line with the agreement, however, the Lux Veritatis Foundation was responsible for organising the exhibition. Therefore, according to NIK, incorporating the costs of this task into the state budget expenditures was illegal and unjustified and NIK has filed a report of possible criminal activity in this matter.
In October 2023, the then Minister of Culture signed an annex which changed the original provisions of the agreement, adjusting them to the activities already completed. Moreover, a new clause was added which obliged the following minister to transfer to the Foundation no less than PLN 15 million annually in four subsequent years. That was supposed to be an operating subsidy, earmarked for the museum's current operations (e.g. employees’ salaries), paid from January 2024 to the end of 2028. That amount was disproportionally high as compared with operating subsidies granted at that time to other cultural institutions which conducted their activity in full scope and hired many more employees.
On the day when the Minister of Culture signed an annex with the Foundation, there was a ceremonial opening of the “Memory and Identity” Museum but… without any permanent exhibition and with only a few full-time employees. Until now the museum has functioned to a limited extent since under the Act on Museums it is assumed that the last day of forming such an institution is taken as the day of opening a permanent exhibition. The museum in Toruń on which the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage spent nearly PLN 206 million still lacks such an exhibition.
Recommendations
for the Minister of Culture and National Heritage who should:
- take effective measures to cancel the agreement clause saying that the Founder (the Lux Veritatis Foundation) is not obliged to return the expenditures incurred by the Ministry to build the museum since the clause is glaringly inconsistent with the Act on Cultural Activity,
- take measures to make sure the Lux Veritatis Foundation returns the expenditures incurred by the Minister in 2020-2023 of nearly PLN 57.3 million to design and carry out a permanent exhibition for the “Memory and Identity” Museum, the costs of which – in accordance with the agreement of 2018 – were the Founder’s liability,
- take up an audit of the way the museum used the targeted subsidy to finance the museum construction in terms of eligibility of the task costs, in particular to verify if the location and real size of this investment complies with the agreement in formal and legal terms,
- take efforts to establish the costs of building premises needed to conduct the museum activity, in line with the Act on Cultural Activity and to request the return of these expenditures for the Lux Veritatis Foundation as the Founder being an initiator and the actual beneficiary of the solutions put into effect.
