2024-07-18 18:57 update: 2024-07-18, 19:00
Photo: PAP/Tytus Żmijewski
Poland's Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy has notified prosecutors of potential crime committed by its former head while organising events promoting child benefits which the ministry says did not need promotion.
Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bak, the family, labour and social policy minister, announced the news on Thursday.
In the 2023 election year, her predecessor in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, Marlena Malag, organised 140 picnics promoting the upcoming raise in a monthly child benefit programme from PLN 500 to PLN 800, starting from 2024. The 500 Plus programme has been in place since 2016.
But the new government says the picnics were meant to promote PiS before the October 15, 2023 parliamentary elections.
"About one hundred and forty 800 Plus picnics were held in 2023 alone, as you know, the election year," Dziemianowicz-Bak said. "Our predecessors, PiS members, spent about PLN 8 million (EUR 1.87 mln) on their organisation, including PLN 1.4 million (EUR 330,000) on promotion alone.
"These are huge sums, huge sums of public money (spent - PAP) on the promotion and organisation of picnics around a benefit that had been paid for years, which we think no-one needed to be informed about," Dziemianowicz-Bak continued.
The organisation of the picnics has also been criticised by the state auditing body Supreme Audit Office.
Malag, who has since become a European parliamentarian, said on social media on Thursday that the picnics were meant to "create a positive social mood and sentiment towards the promotion of the value of the family," calling them "a long-term investment in promoting fertility and a sense of security and social confidence in carrying out parental tasks." (PAP)
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