During his speech in the Sejm on 20 November, Deputy Minister of discipline and Higher Education Marek Gzik warned that Poland may gotta return about PLN 2 billion to the European Commission. Reason? Irregularities in the activities of the National Centre for investigation and Development, which, according to NIK control, did not respect competition rules or its own interior procedures
Gzik stressed that the EC had challenged the spending of EU funds by the NCBR, and that the scale of the reservations was so serious that any of the funds would most likely should be reimbursed. The Deputy Minister assessed that, despite the corrective actions carried out by the current Ministry, "about PLN 2 billion – and possibly more – we will pay with taxpayers' money"
The Deputy Chief of the Ministry recalled that the problem had been expanding for years and intensified after structural changes, erstwhile the NCBR – after the erstwhile Ministry of discipline and Technology had been incorporated into the MEiN – was placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy. Gzik pointed out that during this period, “what you wanted was done” and the NCBR became a “political trophy” of the erstwhile ruling team. According to the NIK and the information provided in the Sejm, the irregularities concerned, inter alia, the principles of task evaluation, spending and eligibility of costs, as well as the situations referred to as “corruption” — presently examined by the prosecution.
Human resources problems only deepened chaos. The number of experts assessing the competition applications fell to as much as 20% of the erstwhile state, as many scientists did not want – as Gzik said – to “comply with their name what happened”
The hotel ensures that it operates an intensive recovery programme and that the first assessment by the European Commission following the changes is "clearly positive". Gzik felt that the position of NCBR as an intermediary could be saved — although any of the contested measures could no longer be saved
