An enterpreneur's view of Warsaw
A survey conducted among members of the Business Center Club shows that while businesspeople can easily come up with a long wish-list for Warsaw, 85 percent of them are very critical of the current local government and believe it has done virtually nothing to improve living or investment conditions in the capital.
If the businesspeople had the decisive vote in the upcoming elections, it would be Civic Platform's Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, former president of the central bank and vice president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, that would hold the reins of power in Warsaw for the next four-year term of office.
She would get the votes of 67 percent of entrepreneurs, followed by the candidate from the social-democratic bloc, Marek Borowski, who is supported by 28 percent of respondents. Acting Mayor Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz from Law and Justice could count on a mere three percent of votes.
Among the most urgent issues to be handled, 70 percent of those who took part in the survey named the construction of a ring road.
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who was recently discussing the problem with the Ministry of Infrastructure, believes a motorway around Warsaw could be ready within four years. "Considering that the construction of a 100km-long motorway takes two to three years, I believe we could finish the ring road, which will be some 150km long, in three to four years' time," Marcinkiewicz said.
But Marek Borowski is less optimistic: "The acting Mayor's promises sound very good but we all know that building the ring road is not just about the construction process, and it will take much longer to get all the necessary permits, buy the land, etc," he retorted during a debate organized by the BCC.
The second-most-important problem to be addressed is a master plan for Warsaw. "The fact that the chief architect is the only person who can decide whether a new investment can be carried out on a certain plot of land is a relic of the past. It shouldn't be like that," stressed Gronkiewicz-Waltz.
Both Gronkiewicz-Waltz and Borowski believe that the answer to many of the capital's problems lies in decentralization.
"The bulk of decisions should be moved from the city hall level to the districts. It's a joke that if a cleaning lady from a district office wants to go on a holiday she needs a signature from the Mayor," joked Borowski.
Other projects that entrepreneurs want to see completed as soon as possible are the construction of another metro line, a new northern bridge and a speedier overhaul of the capital's roads.
All the candidates agree on the priorities. The question is, how many pre-election promises will be kept?
