The Minister of the State Treasury—at the request of the mayor of Bolesławiec—signed the commercialisation deed on 5 November, under which Przedsiębiorstwo Wodociągów i Kanalizacji was transformed into a limited liability company. Its president became Ireneusz Maszko, the company’s previous director.
The ministry’s decision, following the ongoing process of the mass commercialisation of the last state-owned enterprises, is the first stage of PWiK’s restructuring. This restructuring may end with the enterprise’s long-awaited municipalisation.
“The decision on commercialisation is information that has been awaited for a very long time and has now arrived from the ministry,” says Bolesławiec Mayor Piotr Roman. “For many years, PWiK has not been a municipal enterprise, which is an exceptional situation in our country. That is why this first step makes us so pleased and brings municipalisation closer—the municipal government’s recovery of the enterprise.”
“I am very pleased that this has happened,” comments Józef Burniak, the former director of PWiK, on the ministry’s decision. In the former mayor of Bolesławiec’s opinion, commercialisation could have taken place earlier. “The application for commercialisation could have been submitted after 14 May 2006, almost a year and a half ago, because that was when the legal possibilities for commercialisation and municipalisation first arose,” explains Józef Burniak. According to him, PWiK’s previous acting manager prepared the application exceptionally incompetently. The newly appointed director had to prepare it again.
(GA report)
Updated 2007-11-10 11:30
Commentary by Andrzej Chodyra, former acting manager of PWiK
"Mr Burniak managed PWiK exceptionally incompetently, and this actually prevented commercialisation. Disorder in the company’s assets and finances meant that the minister could not make a decision on commercialising the enterprise. Correcting these irregularities was time-consuming. That is why commercialisation was delayed. After the financial statement was corrected, another application was submitted and accepted by the minister. One consequence of correcting the previous management’s errors was the payment of overdue tax liabilities. I hope that the prosecutor’s office conducting the investigation into this matter will establish the scope of the problem and the people responsible for this situation."