Bolesławiec, 16 November 1993.
Information is good if it is complete and based on facts, and the readers of “Głos Bolesławca” have the right to such information. Therefore, bearing in mind that the newspaper is published monthly, I am taking this opportunity to include in this issue a response to the “open letter from Bolesławiec craftsmen to the city authorities,” signed by the Guild Master, Mr Stachowski.
After reading this letter, I wondered what Mr Stachowski’s intentions were. I believe the doubts are justified, because the main accusation was that Bolesławiec contractors were being overlooked when renovation and construction work was commissioned. What are the facts, which I believe Mr Stachowski knew when formulating this accusation? An analysis of the work commissioned by the City Office—all through tenders—over the past two years is as follows: of 32 contracts, 23 were awarded to contractors from Bolesławiec; 7 contracts involved roadwork with asphalt surfaces (we do not have a local company carrying out such work). The remaining 2 contracts involved drainage work carried out by a specialist company from Nowogrodziec and the laying of concrete-block pavements by a company from Polkowice. I would like to pause for a moment at this last contract and use its example to explain our intentions and our policy. We purchased the paving blocks for this work very advantageously, at low prices, mostly as early as the end of 1992.
This year, through a public tender, we sought a contractor for this work. Five contractors submitted bids, including one from Bolesławiec. Our local contractor, having no experience in this type of work and lacking the appropriate equipment, proposed a price of 199,000 zł per metre. The contractor we selected, who had experience—which we verified—and the necessary equipment, offered the lowest price: 110,000 zł per metre, together with a three-year guarantee. If we take into account that we laid approximately 6,000 metres of this pavement, the difference in labour costs exceeds 500 million zł. Could we have made a different decision, and what criteria should we have followed?
As for taxes, I believe readers are owed a precise explanation of this as well. Local governments receive a 5% share of personal income tax. Assuming that the contractor earned 1 billion zł—and he earned less than that—our share of the tax calculated on his income would have amounted to 4 million zł! Let us compare these two amounts: 500 million zł saved by choosing the cheaper contractor and less than 4 million zł in lost tax revenue. It is worth adding that this contractor employed workers from Bolesławiec, although he had difficulty finding willing employees—one of our parish priests even helped him in this regard. The situation is similar with contracts issued by the Municipal Housing Management Plant; here too, almost all work is carried out by contractors from Bolesławiec. The exceptions are the renovation of buildings on Grunwaldzka Street and the façades in the Market Square, carried out by “Sawex” from Zgorzelec. The second company working on the façades, “DuWo,” is practically a contractor entirely from Bolesławiec. We did not have many interested parties in the tenders organized for this work, and none of the local craftsmen took part in them.
In conclusion, I believe that we are no worse than other cities, as Mr Stachowski suggests. We try to look after our contractors, seeing this as a mutual interest, and we inform the Multi-Industry Crafts Cooperative in advance about planned work. If we have a choice between two equivalent contractors, we will always choose our own, but we must not forget that we are managing taxpayers’ money and must above all be economical and responsible when making financial decisions. As for Mr Stachowski’s intentions, the matter became clear after an interview with him was published in Gazeta Robotnicza (15 November 1993), under the subtitle “an election solitaire.” The open letter is the beginning of an election game ahead of the local-government elections. I appreciate the intentions, but I have doubts about the method used in the first deal of cards in this solitaire.
Józef Król Mayor of the City