Mr. Misiąg points to the fact that in public administration it is still easier to hire new employees than dismiss the surplus ones. ”In Poland, in such cases we prefer to figure out some work which is often not needed for anyone. In this way we do harm to citizens and the officials themselves” - says Vice-President of NIK. And he explains that an official doing unnecessary work gets frustrated in a short time. On the other hand, in many institutions where the officials are needed to handle real problems there are too few of them. ”There are too few of them to properly settle citizens’ affairs which often ends in queues and people’s anger” - says Mr. Misiąg.
The second part of conversation with Mr. Wojciech Misiąg on public institutions and officials
A drawback of public administration is an inflexible personnel policy. ”The sources of the problem are bad planning and various past developments that are still following us”- claims Mr. Misiąg. Will the situation be improved by a new administration management method amounting to pursuit of specific goals? ”In Poland this trend is perceived with some resistance, while in other countries it has worked effectively for a long time now” - explains Vice-President of NIK. In his opinion public institutions either start to operate in this way or they operate badly. ”After all, this is no discovery. A public institution that was established to perform specific tasks should be evaluated mainly based on how it performs them” - says Mr. Misiąg.
The Vice-President of NIK underlines one more time that no public institution should function for itself. ”The officials should remember that they work for citizens, that they are ”commissioned” to settle their specific affairs. If they don’t do it they will represent rather a special interest group, not a public administration institution” - claims Mr. Misiąg. And he is positive that there is no more space for such institutions in the present circumstances.
The first part of the conversation with Mr. Wojciech Misiąg evoked hot comments among the officials themselves. Most of them pointed to the discomfort of work based on unclear and inconsistent law. Another group of them found the statement: ”in these circumstances officials have to take risk sometimes” controversial. Some officials inquired about their financial liability in case of a mistake. Other questions were related to the auditors’ attitude to the breach of regulations, even if that breach was forced by the legislative framework and the good of citizens. ”No doubt, we have to strive for clarifying the provisions of law” - replies Mr. Misiąg. And he adds that this is one of the key goals of the NIK auditing activity.
