In 2022-2024, the Lower Silesian Province Office paid over PLN 12 million adjudicated costs due to lengthiness of proceedings or inactivity related to legalisation of foreigners’ stay and work in Poland. In the same period, the remaining 15 province offices spent the total of PLN 80 thousand on that purpose. The problem could be rooted in a year-long, non-transparent and corruption-prone mechanism of setting appointments for foreigners. NIK auditors identified nearly 8 thousand bookings outside the queueing system. In view of the audit results NIK has filed a report to the prosecutor’s office.
Audit no.: I/24/002/LWR
Already in 2018, NIK negatively evaluated the way foreigners’ affairs were handled by the Lower Silesian Province Office. The auditors found at that time that the solutions implemented there did not comply with the principle of equal treatment of parties. They also pointed to untimely review of applications and ineffective supervision. The latest audit results revealed that a lot of issues identified then have not been solved until now. The number of complaints about the office’s inactivity and lengthiness of proceedings has gone up. In 2022-2024, it was 9.7 thousand. However, the internal register kept in the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs did not contain any data facilitating the control of the process and the dates of reviewing reported issues. Only ad hoc solutions were implemented. In the audited period, 6.8 thousand applications were left without recognition and in nearly 61 thousand cases, as of the end of 2024, applications were reviewed with delays. In the audited sample of issues the decision waiting time in some cases exceeded 3 years and 7 months, on average it was over 9 months, instead of 6 months maximum.
Following the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine, special regulations for immigrants were implemented. Though, the opportunity to shorten the waiting queues was not used as the office did not take sufficient measures to identify cases governed by those regulations. Due to negligence or sluggishness but also improper organisation and control, the Lower Silesian Province Office incurred enormous costs of court judgements and risked incurring subsequent costs in the future. Besides, the documentation on foreigners’ issues kept at the office, also containing data protected by law, was not secured properly.
Potential conflict of interests?
The Director of the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs in 2024-2025 was a former representative of foreigners who applied for legal stay or work in Poland.
The situation at the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs was known to the department heads, directors general of the office and the governors who failed to take adequate remedy actions in the audited period. No anti-corruption procedures were developed or implemented, despite identifying a significant risk of irregularities of this kind. Also, adequate supervisory mechanisms were not created in the event of potential conflict of interest.
In legal terms it was not forbidden to appoint persons running business activity related to handling foreigners’ affairs for higher posts in civil service. The NIK audit showed, however, that the department director was hired for that position, although – despite such obligation – she was not screened for management competencies, the ban of taking managerial posts in public authority offices or fulfilling functions related to allocating public funds. Also, the department head was not given the security certificate or the consent to access confidential information, neither was she trained in the protection of classified information.
As a consequence, without having access to classified information the Director of the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs could not exercise full and effective supervision over issues handled by the department. In addition, no internal control of handling foreigners’ affairs and passport services was carried out, despite the office management being aware of the irregularities occurring in the department.
Foreigners in queues
The NIK audit revealed that foreigners. were not ensured equal treatment in the Lower Silesian Province Office in 2022-2024. The mechanism of setting appointments for foreigners in the office was non-transparent and prone to corruption. Employees of the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs exceeded their rights by accepting and reviewing applications outside the queuing system. In other words, the corruption-prone mechanism identified by NIK was in that case related to officials taking arbitrary decisions, beyond control.
The NIK auditors found that at the Lower Silesian Province Office and its branch in Legnica in 2022-2024 selected persons were treated in a privileged way, including “significant clients”, foreigners’ representatives and groups of foreigners.
Those persons were allowed to apply for temporary residence due to work and appointments in that matter were agreed with the office employees. In some cases individuals were served out of turn.
Following the audit, NIK highlighted the necessity to urgently and considerably bolster the management control within the scope audited by NIK, both on part of the governor and the management of the Department of Nationals and Foreigners' Affairs. The Governor of Lower Silesia did not raise any objections to NIK’s findings and communicated that NIK’s post-audit recommendations would be implemented.
