Over a month, more than 3,000 refugees from Ukraine in Poland lost payments because they violated the law.
Poland said that since the beginning of the full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, approximately 2 million zlotys were paid to Ukrainian citizens unlawfully, so they want to return this assistance, which ZUS paid to refugees after they left Poland.
About this Rzeczpospolita.
On January 28, amendments to the law on assistance to citizens of Ukraine came into force, according to which payments to families from Ukraine are terminated if they leave Poland for more than 30 days.
During the month of the new provision of the Aid Law, ZUS suspended the payment of benefits to approximately 3,200 citizens of Ukraine because they violated the country's legislation and left for more than a month.
“If these people return to Poland within 30 days from the date of departure, they will not lose the legality of their stay in Poland and the payment of assistance will be resumed. Withholding the payment immediately after the day of departure on the basis of the amended act allowed us to avoid overpayment of assistance,” explains the speaker of ZUS Pavel Zhebrovsky.
Previously, there was a provision according to which ZUS received information about the date of expiry of the period of stay in Poland. Therefore, information about the exit was provided no earlier than a month after crossing the border. This decision led to numerous cases of “groundless overpayments” to refugees from Ukraine, because they did not return to Poland in 30 days.
“The payment authorities, in particular the Social Insurance Institution, not knowing about the person’s departure, paid him an allowance to which he was not actually entitled. Only later did they receive information from the border guards that this person retroactively lost the right to legal stay,” explained at ZUS.
PLN 35,300 have already been seized and checks are ongoing.
“ ZUS is consistently making further decisions on illegally collected benefits and is obliging the beneficiaries to return them,” says Pavel Zhebrovsky.
Recall that in Warsaw they explained how Ukrainians can legalize for a long time in Poland.
Earlier, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets explained that Ukrainian refugees who receive financial assistance abroad must reflect these incomes in the declaration, but do not need to pay tax.
