NIK auditor files compaint about senseless investigation of Labor Ministry

Stanislaw Wasowicz, designated by the Supreme Board of Inspection (NIK) last year to audit the Labor Ministry's work on creation and operation of pension funds, has written a complaint to NIK president Janusz Wojciechowski saying, └Our audit made no sense... Minister Ewa Lewicka, who is responsible for social reforms, told us that pension funds are not supervised by the Labor Ministry but by the Pension Fund Supervisory Office (UNFE),■ writes Wasowicz. At the beginning of 2000 Labor Minister Longin Komolowski refused NIK auditors entry to the Ministry, accusing it of manipulating the computerization procedure of the Social Insurance Company (ZUS). Consequently NIK's audits in the Labor Ministry dragged on from September 2000 to the end of January 2001. └We felt that it was some kind of punishment from NIK for the fact that we did not want NIK to audit the Ministry unless it declared that the audit would be conducted according to NIK regulations.■ (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 5) A.Z.