The biggest problem of local self-governments is the asymmetry between their tasks and insufficient funding, Law and Justice president Jarosław Kaczyński believes. During a PiS debate devoted to self-governments, the head of the party stressed that they are a great political achievement.

The conference "Local government in Poland in light of the 2013 state budget", with the participation of over 100 local government officials from across the country, was organized on Monday at the Sejm.

The President of the Law and Justice party pointed out that after 1990 local governments "took over a huge part of responsibility for the shape of our social life" and "are a great achievement of the political system".

"We have a situation in which there is a radical asymmetry between the powers, obligations of local governments and their financing. This asymmetry is the most serious problem facing local government officials and Polish social life," assessed Jarosław Kaczyński.

As he added, "this asymmetry is not about abstractions, it is about the concrete undertakings that make up social life, undertakings of fundamental importance."

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Professor Piotr Gliński, PiS candidate for Prime Minister of the technical government, agreed with Kaczyński. He pointed to the "dysfunctions" of local government, including the "inadequacy of resources in relation to the tasks imposed". "Over the past two years, the scope of tasks imposed on local governments has increased," Gliński noted.

Gliński added that local governments are ineffective in solving problems on the labor market and weak in attracting investments. They also lack expert resources. "It would be worthwhile also at the local level to build their own think tanks," believes Prof. Gliński.

Generally, however, in his opinion, the local government reform was one of the most successful in Poland. As one of the examples of asymmetry between the powers of local governments and their financing, the Law and Justice president mentioned education, which is managed by local governments. "This is an activity that is crucial for the present and the future, we are dealing here with a huge shortage of funds," Kaczyński assessed.

As he stressed, in the case of education "we are dealing with a condition for which the local government is not responsible, but is charged with it." "The state that leads to the liquidation of thousands of schools, and the liquidation of any school is a socially negative event.

When (a school) dies, something very important dies, something that cannot be replaced". - Law and Justice leader believes. Jarosław Kaczyński also referred to the issue of social care or public services, i.e. what "makes up the conditions in which citizens live". "We are dealing with huge deficiencies everywhere," he assessed. "It is easy to say that the budget should allocate more funds.

Here the issues of local government are connected with the issue of the reform of public finances, which are today one big anachronism, a huge sphere of arbitrary, irrational decisions, a huge sphere of unjustified privileges, a huge sphere of oppression," said Jarosław Kaczyński.

For: pis.org.pl