The Finance Minister's policies may soon come back to haunt him

Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko presented his anti-crisis plan to the Tripartite Commission yesterday. On Friday, Parliament will discuss the bills that have been accepted by the government. The value of enterprise debts to be written-off has been placed at zl. 12.4 billion, However, companies would have to pay zl. 1.9 billion to the budget due to the so-called restructuring fees accompanying the policy. Moreover, writing-off debts to social insurance funds has been estimated as costing another zl. 11 billion, but enterprises will still have to find zl. 1.7 billion for the restructuring fees. The cost of deferred tax payments will be known in 2003 and will affect the 2004 budget. The last bill, which will help banks to create credit portfolios, will decrease state revenues from corporate tax by zl. 300 million. Labor Minister Jerzy Hausner said that this package will help slow the growth of unemployment in 2003. However, the president of the Confederation of Private Employers, Henryka Bochniarz, warned that the problems of companies which have difficulty in adapting to the market would only return and force further concessions from the government. (Prawo i Gospodarka, p. 7) M.M.