Poland seeks to recover public funds spent illegally under former gov't

During a Friday press conference, Tusk said that a special agreement was signed between the interior, justice and finance ministers, Tomasz Siemoiniak, Adam Bodnar and Andrzej Domanski, to coordinate activities of the services subordinate to them in order to recover the illegally spent State Treasury funds.

Tusk said that the ministers had asked him for consent to sign such an agreement to be able to "fight the closed system that had been built since 2016 and the consequences of which we are suffering to this day,"

He added that coordination between the three ministries is essential "to effectively and promptly recover these enormous amounts of money, for which we have evidence or conviction that they were spent incorrectly and illegally, to the detriment of public interests or outright misappropriated." 

Tusk also said that the end result of the agreement signed on Friday is to prevent future abuse of power for one's own interests.

He also presented to the media some information on the "unprecedented scale of abuse" under PiS government. 

"After six months of activities, investigations, audits, we now have 62 people from the previous power elite who have been charged and 149 notifications were sent to the prosecutor's office," Tusk told reporters.

The ongoing investigations and actions of the prosecutor's office allowed to secure PLN 112 million (EUR 25.9 million) from the accounts of the people involved "for the sake of future claims by the state against those people who did unheard of things," he said.

"This is the first time in Poland's history that the government officials who had to give up power as a result of the elections were held accountable so effectively," he added.

He said that proceedings were conducted by the National Revenue Administration in 90 institutions and that the "suspicious amount" of public money spent concerns PLN 100 billion (EUR 23 billion).

"We will effectively demand the recovery of these funds," Tusk said, and added that the amount to be returned at the moment is PLN 5 billion (EUR 1.16 billion). 

He also explained that by "a closed system with the patronage of the PiS leadership" he means "a very well-prepared mechanism for using public funds, entire offices, employees in the election campaign for the benefit of the then ruling party."

"This mechanism has a direct impact on what will happen in Poland in the coming years and certainly had an impact on the election results," Tusk argued.

He added that the signed agreement also aims to trace "random" events that have not been combined into a system of behaviours so far. 

"And this system was carefully prepared and perfectly implemented," Tusk said.

"What is most striking is the use of funds from ministries and their flow to private accounts. The funds were used for promotion, PiS was very creative here," he added. 

According to Tusk, one of the most important mechanisms of "extorting money or abusing opportunities" was rigging competitions as regards grants or subsidies for organisations, municipalities and associations." 

"If they were not municipalities where (PiS) ministers were candidates, they were relegated to the end of the queue for no reason," he added.

"We are dealing with a system of siphoning off huge amounts of money, for example through advertising campaigns, by State Treasury companies and public administration, for media that received advertising contracts," Tusk continued, "and this concerned media closely linked to the ruling party."
 
"The real criteria were purely political," he added. 

Tusk also said that in 2023 alone, the Prime Minister's Office awarded 524 subsidies worth a total of PLN 370 million (EUR 85.6 million) to various foundations, organisations and religious associations, the overwhelming majority of which were associated with the then ruling party and its support base, most of them without open competitions. (PAP)

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