Jan Rokita, tipped to become Poland’s prime minister after 2005 elections, wants swift public finance reforms including a weaker role for the finance minister in creating annual budgets

Jan Rokita, tipped to become Poland’s prime minister after 2005 elections, wants swift public finance reforms including a weaker role for the finance minister in creating annual budgets, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Opinion polls show Rokita’s centre-right Civic Platform (PO) and a right-wing ally winning general elections due either at mid-year or around September. "Firstly, I want to remove budget preparation from the purview of the finance ministry and transfer it to the prime minister," Rokita told the daily Rzeczpospolita. Such a change would shift to the prime minister the task of enforcing budget discipline within the government — a role traditionally held by the finance minister in Poland. Along with government cutbacks, the PO hopes its flat-tax reforms would help reduce Poland’s budget deficit from about five per cent of GDP in 2004 to below the euro’s three per cent ceiling by 2007 — enabling single currency adoption in 2009-2010. Rokita said he wanted to carve out a new development ministry from several current ministries to oversee regional development and the use of funds available from the European Union, which Poland joined last May. He would also seek to reduce employment in the public sector by about 20 per cent, mostly at the regional administration level.