A mess with a tourist voucher. He may not even have half a million eligible

In the long run, we still get information that there are problems with taking a tourist voucher. Many people also describe them in online groups dedicated to this provision.

– I got a voucher for one child, for the other two no longer – writes one of the mothers. Others complain of identical problems in any configuration. They are not able to generate a gift certificate as an only child or any number of siblings.

–There is no “Polish tourist voucher” tab on my PUE ZUS profile. Since 14 days the hotline of the voucher has been directing to ZUS. ZUS claims that it only makes the platform available and should be addressed to the Polish Tourist Organisation. POT explains that it cannot process personal data. And there’s a vicious circleWhere’s the problem coming from?

The Social Insurance Institution is responsible for issuing vouchers, but the list of persons receiving the 500+ benefit made available to ZUS the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. In turn the “operator” of the voucher is the Polish Tourist Organisation. If someone has the right to a voucher and does not see it on the ZUS website, they should write to POT. However, it is worth checking in advance that we have not fallen into the so-called father trap.

What does that mean? In most cases, 500 plus goes to mom’s account. If in that case the father enters his account on the ZUS website, the voucher will not be found there. It will be awarded to the person who physically takes the benefit 500 plus. But if we have the right to the voucher and we do not see this benefit in the ZUS system, we need to write a request to POT.

– In this case, the Polish Tourist Organisation should be requested to establish the right to a voucher or additional entitlement to a voucher. The application should be accompanied by information on the granting of the educational benefit of the Family 500+ issued by the competent authority – says Paweł Żebrowski, spokesman for the Social Insurance Institution.

How many people have trouble getting a gift certificate?

The Polish Tourist Organisation, to which complaints are received by people who do not have a voucher (despite the right to receive it) does not answer the question of how many such cases there are. According to the accounts of people waiting for the voucher, POT officials report that there are “very many applications” and that they have 30 days to implement the application.

– In the case of occasional situations where the voucher has not been automatically generated, a specific complaint procedure is triggered (established jointly by ZUS, POT and MPPiPS). These situations most often concern foreigners who do not have a PESEL number and people who have been registered with more than one parent – explains Małgorzata Czerepak, spokesman for the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy.

It adds that this is a case where, for example, the benefit was first granted to the mother and later through a change of father, while the unit at the level of the municipality did not correctly mark this change in its system or the approval of the decision was not registered at the level of the municipality.

From the data of the resort of the family donated money.pl, the tourist voucher was created successfully for about 6.342 million people. Meanwhile, during the extension of the 500 plus programme last year, the ministry claimed that 6.8 million people would be entitled to the benefit. It would suggest that half a million vouchers are still missing.

However, later messages from the Ministry of Labour and Family gave a different number of 6.4 million people. At the same time, the benefit of 500 plus is to be actually paid. Interestingly, in June, when justifying the bill on the gift certificate, Deputy Prime Minister Jadwiga Emilewicz spoke about another number – 6.5 million eligible…

There may be a group of 300-400 000 children whose parents do not receive benefits – but this does not mean that they do not have the right to collect a tourist voucher. At best there are few tens of thousands of people, at worst half a million.