The Sejm will allow MPs to buy the phones
12:07
Cell phones of the members of parliament at the end of consecutive terms of office of the Sejm were regularly lost. To combat this, the Chancellery of the Sejm allowed politicians to buy back their equipment when their mandate expires.
“At the beginning of July, the head of the Chancellery of the Sejm, Agnieszka Kaczmarska, issued an order to allow MPs to buy back property they had acquired with money to run their offices. This includes electronic equipment, including smartphones, which due to the lack of redemption often go missing”, Rzeczpospolita” reports.
According to the previous regulations, MPs had to give away their telephones or computer equipment after the end of the term. The equipment, being the property of the Chancellery of the Sejm, would be circulated in a closed circuit and would be given to MPs in the next term. The effect of this policy was that smartphones were often lost before the expiry of the mandate. In such a situation, the MP reported the loss to the Sejm, which issued an accounting note. The MP paid for it out of his own pocket and was able to deregister the equipment from the MP’s office property, which is subject to return.
In order to stop this practice there will be a possibility to buy back smartphones and other electronic devices bought by MPs with Sejm funds as office equipment on the same principles as have already been in force for several years in the case of company tablets. “The devices are individually valued, so MPs who cared about them will paradoxically pay more”, Rzeczpospolita” points out.
