It can be suspected that the laptop program for fourth graders was an incentive created by PiS to put a cross next to the appropriate name in the fall of 2023. Will the project be continued now, after the change of government? Perhaps, but there is one big problem here.
There is no money, there is no tender. It is not known what will happen next with laptops for students
All because no money was secured for the next batch of laptops for fourth graders. No tender was held and no KPO money was negotiated with the European Union. This is despite the fact that even the laptops that students received last year have a sticker with the logo of the National Reconstruction Plan with a note that the project was financed by the European Union as part of NextGenerationEU.
Like , Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has not taken any steps to secure the purchase of computers for subsequent generations. “He did not announce a tender, did not secure financing, and – most importantly – did not negotiate with the European Commission consent to the purchase of laptops from KPO,” writes the station. “Now, let Czarnek, Cieszyński and company explain to students that due to PiS’s incompetence, they will not receive laptops in September,” we read.
Despite the above-mentioned stickers on the casings, the laptops were not financed from the KPO, but from the secured funds of the Polish Development Fund on a pre-financing basis. Only ultimately will the EU pay for the laptops. Or at least that’s what PiS assumed, because – , at least until the conditions of the program are changed.
As if that were not enough, another problem is the lack of a tender in which the supplier or suppliers of the next batch of laptops for students should be selected. One of the politicians familiar with the matter told the station that the previous Minister of Digital Affairs should have announced the tender by December last year, but he did not do so. This is due to the lack of consent from EU commissioners and the lack of secured money in the budget. And this is about a lot of money, because the estimated cost of 394,000 computers is as much as PLN 1.149 billion – reminds TVN24.
As if that was not enough, the outgoing ministers knew about the problems with the program and the reservations that the European Commission had about this expenditure. When, in a letter dated November 27, the Minister of Funds and Regional Policy warned about urgent negotiations with the EC and changes to the program, post-election chaos reigned. Old ministers said goodbye to the government, and the so-called hello greeted it. Mateusz Morawiecki’s two-week government. The station’s interlocutor states that there are a lot of “such gifts” left by the old government in various ministries, adding that it looks as if PiS politicians “simply haven’t worked since July.”
Source: Gazeta
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