In terms of access to the broadband Internet, Poland is behind most of the EU member states. To remove the barriers in accessibility of telecommunications services, the European Union granted more than EUR 1 billion to Poland for the creation of the broadband network for
2007-2013. The projects related to the development of fast Internet may be financed within three different operational programmes: Regional Operational Programme (EUR 579 million), Eastern Poland Development Programme (EUR 300 million) and Innovative Economy Programme (EUR 200 million).
The NIK findings show that most of the planned investments related to the creation of the broadband Internet have either barely started or stopped at the stage of preparations. As part of the Eastern Poland Development Programme (EPDP), more than 10 thousand km of optical fibres had been planned to be installed by 2015 which would provide access to the broadband network to more than a million inhabitants. Although the provincial governments being the project beneficiaries concluded the EU grants agreements (for more than PLN 1 billion), the setup of the Broadband Network for Eastern Poland was not started at all (a project within EPDP). The reasons were among others the mistakes and drawbacks made by the contractor in subsequent versions of the feasibility study and the lack of inventory of the existing network.
Not much more could be done within the Regional Operational Programme (RPO). It was assumed that 3.5 thousand km of optical fibres will be installed by 2015, which will provide fast Internet access to nearly 5 million people. Turning the assumptions into reality proved not that easy, though. By the end of the NIK audit, only 42 km of the network was installed and only a little more than 150 thousand people obtained the web access. According to the Ministry of Regional Development, the difficulties in executing projects as part of the Regional Operational Programme resulted among others from their size and complexity level. An additional problem was also the need to obtain the state aid notification in the European Commission. The Ministry also points to complicated procedures and lengthiness of appeal proceedings which occur in case of tender procedures.
One of the priorities of the Innovative Economy Programme is to support small businesses wanting to provide Internet on the areas where such business is unprofitable. It is about providing Internet on the so-called “last mile” stretch, that is between the node of the backbone distributed network and the end user. In line with the Programme assumptions, 2.5 thousand of such small businesses were supposed to provide fast Internet to 100 thousand entities. The auditors’ findings reveal, though, that only seven entrepreneurs commenced such activity and only 1600 entities use it. One of the reasons for this situation are delays in the development of regional networks.
According to the Supreme Audit Office, the low progress of individual projects shows that the assumed objectives of the operational programmes may not be met. What follows, the EU grants will have to be returned. The accumulation of works at the final stage of the projects may have a disastrous impact on their execution quality. The situation is no better because of the late kick-off of the system project (carried out as part of the Innovative Economy Operational Programme, activity 8.3). The project involves coordination activities at the strategic level, support for local governments in making investments, and increase of access to the knowledge and innovative technology solutions.
NIK also critically evaluates execution of the Polish Internet Library (PIL) project by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration. It was supposed to provide Internet access to the classics of the Polish and world literature, archival documents, magazines and periodicals. Although the total of PLN 10 million was spent on that project, the level of resources and PIL functionality considerably differs from the standards of other digital libraries. The NIK auditors mention a range of shortcomings of that website. There are no facilities for blind persons, only a small percentage of publications are high-resolution, only a part of collected files (in rtf and txt formats) are available for popular reading programmes, not to mention that you cannot search the works by key words or phrases. Besides, the technology used in creating PIL makes its further development impossible.
In 2008, the Polish Internet Library went under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Its service was entrusted to the National Library (NL). It did not change much, though, as the NL did not receive additional PLN 400 thousand from the Ministry to modernise the website. Moreover, when the National Library was taking over the Polish Internet Library, it was already developing its own digital library project CBN Polona (National Digital Library), very popular with the users. In these circumstances, NIK requested the Ministry to develop a plan to manage the resources gathered in the PIL and consider the efficacy of running two digital libraries by the National Library.
