At the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, the cash register is empty and the pile of unpaid invoices is growing. Within one week, the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management receives applications for the payment of subsidies from the Clean Air program in the amount of approximately PLN 100 million. Arrears in subsidy payments on January 26 amounted to approximately half a billion zlotys, and PLN 20,000 were waiting for payments. families – estimated Andrzej Guła, president of the Krakow Smog Alert.
Clean air is more important than roads
The value of applications submitted under Clean Air currently exceeds PLN 22 billion, the signed contracts are approaching PLN 18 billion, and payments amounted to almost PLN 9 billion.
The government is feverishly deciding how to allocate funds so that the flagship anti-smog program does not come to a halt. It is clear that stopping the receipt of applications is not an option. Approximately 4,000 inflows per week. applications, most of them from poor people who receive 100% funding. net costs (excluding VAT) of the investment. They can also benefit from an advance payment transferred to the contractor’s account.
After the increase in the amount of co-financing for thermal modernization of the house and the replacement of the stove, the value of the requested aid doubled in a year and the program consumed practically all the “insignificant” money available to the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, thus suspending other programs previously financed from national funds. The Ministry of Climate wanted to reach for the “significant” money that the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management pays into the Local Government Roads Fund (this was the previous government’s idea), but the president’s signature on the budget bill was missing in time.
However, there will be money. The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management received PLN 200 million from the National Reconstruction Plan, specifically from the EUR 5 billion (approx. PLN 22 billion) advance payment that Brussels paid to Poland after adding the RePower EU chapter to the KPO. Now another PLN 398 million is to be spent on Clean Air. – This will be enough to pay all outstanding invoices and there will be some left for ongoing processing of applications – one of the officials tells WysokieNapiecie.pl.
But this is still a drop in the ocean of needs, because the Polish Development Fund, which pays out money as part of the pre-financing of the KPO, has already received an application for the payment of PLN 770 million, and soon the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management will submit another one for the payment of PLN 790 million – according to our information. For PFR to pay out funds for Clean Air, consent must be given by three ministries: climate, EU funds and finance.
Is this just the beginning or is this the end of the problems? What’s next for the Clean Air program? More on this later in the article on WysokieNapiecie.pl
