The incineration plant was bought to discard useless plant protection products stored in waste repositories. The unit was supposed to be mobile and enable the disposal of 272 hazardous waste dumps spread all over Poland. The project authors wanted to have three locations Poland-wide where the plant would be used - the unit was to be moved after having cleaned subsequent regions.
The project implementation has been entrusted to the National Fund of Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW). According to NIK, though, the programme was not prepared well enough. The Fund failed to disseminate information on the incineration plant which reduced the group of people interested in using it. Besides, the institutions which finally entered the project were not ready for that.
The Institute of Plant Protection in Poznań was the first one to use the plant. It turned out, however, that it neither had a proper location to install the plant nor was financially prepared for that. Moreover, it did not have the licence to discard hazardous waste. Only after signing the agreement with NFOŚiGW the Institute started to improve. Trying to meet the terms of the agreement with the Fund, within 4 years it considered 26 potential plant locations. In five cases final arrangements on the construction site started. All these attempts proved ineffective, though, because in not a single case did local communities accept these plans.
Another beneficiary of the Project was the nitrogen plant, Zakłady Azotowe w Tarnowie - Mościcach S.A. It had valid administrative decisions, critical to localise and build the incineration plant. Nevertheless, because of the lack of funds it could not install and start the unit. According to NIK, at the time of concluding relevant agreements, the nitrogen plant was aware that its financial standing at that time made it impossible to cover essential costs.
A year later the Provincial Fund of Environmental Protection and Water Management entered into the agreement with NFOŚiGW. But just like the Institute of Plant Protection, it had no place for the incineration plant. EKO TOP Sp. z o.o., the service and trade company where the Provincial Fund had its shares and to which it wanted to pass the incineration plant as non-cash contribution, had no idea where to localise the unit, either. At the end of the day, no institution managed to install or start the incineration plant.
Since the project objectives were not met, the European Commission told Poland to return more than EUR 1.6 million, which it did in April 2007. It stood for the end of the PHARE project. NIK has criticised the Minister of Environment that after the project completion he did not take responsibility for the incineration plant. He did not take over the project documentation from NFOŚiGW, he did not officially accept the plant or include it in relevant accounting records of the State Treasury. Additionally, he failed to continue its insurance or exercise supervision over its storage. The agreement to store the incineration plant was terminated in September 2005 and the unit was stored without any agreement ever since. The situation was not improved by the on-going dispute about which body should administer the plant - the Minister of Environment or the Minister of State Treasury. Only at the beginning of 2011, the Minister of Environment took some efforts to solve the dispute.
The incineration plant has been stored for more than 10 years and as a consequence its value has gone down by about 50 percent - now it is worth (according to different valuations) PLN 3.5-3.7 million net. But still it may be installed and used in line with its purpose. After such a long time of storage renovation is necessary, though - some parts of the unit need to be replaced.
