NIK criticizes construction of road sound screens

Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has issued a report criticizing the installation of sound screens along Polish highways built before the Euro 2012 championship. In the auditors’ opinion, the money should have been put to better use. The NIK said that screens were installed in many areas where they were not necessary or where they could have been substituted with earthwork or designated green space. The auditors pointed to cases such as the construction of screens parallel to earthwork or close to no longer inhabited. The office said that building screens was favored by Polish law as a method of sound blocking and the General Directorate of National Roads and Motorways often left the decisions to general contractors. The sound level standards were also higher than elsewhere in the EU at the time of the Euro 2012 construction boom, the NIK said.