At the meetings of the Public Auditing Committee held at the end of April and in the middle of May, Vice-President of NIK Stanisław Jarosz presented the results of two NIK audits: The first one concerned protection of interests of insurance companies’ clients and pension funds’ members. The second one dealt with guaranteeing proper coal deliveries to Poland. The issues raised in both audit reports were so alarming that the Committee Members resolved to write desiderata to the Prime Minister and to the Ministers of Environment and Economy.
What are the Parliament Members’ postulates? In the first case concerning the consumer protection the Committee on State Auditing noted that the insurers ignored calls for settling disputes with their clients via arbitration courts or did not agree to such proceedings. In these circumstances, MPs stand in the position that the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection should cooperate with the Office of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and the Insurance Ombudsman to analyse potential law changes. The point is to introduce the alleged consent of the entrepreneur (e.g. insurer) to settle disputes with clients by arbitration courts. They also emphasise that in such cases the Consumer Court of Arbitration may be a good solution.
The postulate to guarantee required coal deliveries to Poland quotes the NIK report by saying that national coal deposits will not run out by 2035. NIK has pointed out, though, that irrational management of coal reserves now may have negative consequences in future. One of the MPs’ requests is that the Minister of Environment should make sure that mining companies stop using irrational coal extraction methods and that the Minister of Economy should go on supporting technological modernisation of the Polish mining industry.
Both desiderata were passed on 25 May 2011 and submitted to their addressees.
