Mismanagement threatens to derail IACS
System for monitoring and controlling financial aid to country's farmers far behind schedule; allegations of cronyism plague project
By Timothy Sifert
It seems simple enough: As a prerequisite of joining the European Union, the country must soon implement the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) - a wide-ranging computer database that would enable Poland to usher in the roughly E1 billion (zł. 4.45 billion) in direct subsidies to local farmers, as well as obtain the funds conditionally promised Poland via the union's common agricultural policy (CAP). As well as being a vital part of the country's plans to integrate itself into the EU, IACS should be a conspicuous boon for the country's population, roughly a quarter of which are part of an agricultural household.
Yet, just as the EU is restructuring the oft-condemned CAP to the further profit of some local farmers, the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARiMR), which is charged with administering the IACS system, now on its fourth president and 12th new IACS plan since the system's creation, continues to bungle the development of the agricultural technology project.
CAP reform or no CAP reform, Poland stands to lose €2.9 billion (zł. 12.9 billion) in total if the project is not properly implemented. More specifically, if IACS is not put on line next year, the government will be forced to repay those billions of euros (plus fines) when the EU comes round in 2005 to see how the money was spent. Losing the capital would exacerbate the already serious concerns that local farmers are on unequal footing with their EU counterparts.
Wojciech Pomajda recently replaced Jerzy Miller as president of ARiMR, after the latter stepped down following the resignation of Agriculture Minister Adam Tański last month. Wojciech Olejniczak, the current minister of agriculture, met last week with José Manuel Rodriguez, director general for agriculture at the European Commission, to discuss CAP preparation.
On the day of his resignation, Tański said that "the state of preparation of ARiMR to function as a payment agency (to transfer funds), as it was found by the current president (Jerzy Miller) in March, indicates that delays in the building of the IACS system occur at every single level and are connected with every single activity undertaken by the agency."
As if that wasn't condemnation enough, he pointed to Aleksander Bentkowski, Miller's predecessor, in particular. "The optimism propagated by (Miller's) predecessor can be in the most polite way possible described as indecent," Tański said. "A few days after I became agriculture minister, I met President Bentkowski, and he assured me at that time that the IACS system was being implemented with no delays. Three months on, I can state emphatically that the information I was given then was completely untruthful."
This perpetual lack of progress has also led to consistent accusations of corruption, incompetence and cronyism at ARiMR. One of Bentkowski's last decisions as head of the agency was to employ hundreds of Polish Popular Party (PSL) officials on permanent contracts. And this occurred shortly after he fielded initial accusations of stacking the agency with political appointees that lacked the qualifications necessary to do the job.
The Supreme Chamber of Inspection (NIK), the Sejm subcommittee for IACS and the Ministry of Agriculture all subsequently gave a negative evaluation of Bentkowski's performance. Last year, in fact, NIK stated that 2,125 of the ARiMR's employees were recruited improperly. The European Commission has also expressed concern about Miller's resignation, especially because it came at such a crucial time in Poland's progress towards EU accession.
In June then-president Miller's plans to close 100 of the agency's 315 regional offices, due to his claim that their employees had been hired not on merit but through their political connections, were met with objection by local politicians. And pundits pointed out that, three months after his appointment, Tański quit because he lost support from SLD politicos who were dismayed over his attempt to rid the agency of some of these appointments. A concerted effort at streamlining the agency didn't seem to be in order.
Still, confidence persists on some fronts. Hewlett-Packard Polska is working on the technological aspects of IACS, a chore that for its part has also been subject to political wrangling. However, Andrzej Dopierała, president of Hewlett-Packard Polska, said he was sure the system would be up and running in time, and that the project is "eminently doable."
"You can say quite simply that IACS has kick-started," Dopierała noted. "No matter what is said every now and then, even publicly, I can assure you that IACS can be created on time. It absolutely can happen. There's a lot that needs to be done for it to be possible. But there is definitely enough time to finish it."
