The Polish military budget had begun to shrink somewhat by 1988, but major cuts occurred between 1989 and 1991. In 1991, for example, the Ministry of National Defense proposed to the Sejm a defense budget of 29 trillion zloty (for the value of the zloty-- see Glossary) the Sejm approved a budget of 23 trillion zloty, but subsequent cuts lowered the total to 16 trillion zloty. Some 22.5 percent of the 1990 defense budget was allotted to purchase of arms and equipment, and 61.5 percent went to maintaining manpower levels. Military experts considered the former figure too low to even maintain Polish equipment in status quo condition, leaving no funds for modernization. At the same time, the manpower figure was inflated by the communist legacy of redundant bureaucracy filled with senior officers. The 1991 budget made a nominal allotment of 10 percent for procurement of new equipment. Although cuts in senior military staff were expected to remedy the chronic imbalance between personnel and equipment allocations, in the first part of 1992 some 80 percent of the military budget went to maintaining personnel.

The Sejm cut another 11 percent from the budget for 1992, causing planners again to reassess the structure and equipment of the armed forces. At that point, the Ministry of National Defense owed a debt of about US$70 million to Polish defense industries.

Data as of October 1992