Supreme Board of inspection criticizes mining and advises new measures

The Supreme Board of Inspection (NIK) has published a report demonstrating that previous reforms of the mining industry were ineffective and did not restore the sector's profitability. NIK also advised the adoption of measures aimed at accelerating the sector's privatization and forcing the management and supervisory boards of mining companies to justify their financial results and execution of restructuring programs. Marek Kossowski, vice-minister of the economy, announced that NIK's proposals are to be incorporated into a program for the years 2003-2006. Jan Macieja, manager of the PAN Microeconomics Unit, partly shares the opinion of NIK inspectors though, in his opinion, not all the funds the mining sector obtained in the years 1990-2001 - around zl. 34 billion - were wasted, as a proportion was spent on restructuring employment and decreasing production capacities. NIK also stresses weak ownership supervision over the companies, in particular in the years 1997-98 when owned by the State Treasury. (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) K.K.