The prosecutor's office is already explaining what contracts and activities concerned the company of the senator of the Law and Justice Club, Mieczysław Golba. This concerns the activities during the PiS government in the prison in Rzeszów and the findings of journalists of the TVN24 program “Black and White”. As the Minister of Justice himself writes, “it is worth explaining to the public how a party colleague got a chance to run a profitable business using state money.”
Investigators initiated an investigation into the contracts and activities of Senator Mieczysław Golba's company in the prison in Rzeszów. This is the result, among others, of a reportage in “Black and White” on TVN24.
– (The investigation – editor's note) concerns a crime under Article 231 of the Penal Code, i.e. abuse of powers by public officials – says Janusz Kowalski from the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Krakow.
As part of the work program for prisoners – during the PiS government – the senator's company rented newly built halls from the prison in Rzeszów on preferential terms. It was supposed to employ up to six hundred prisoners there, but it ended up employing several dozen. Ultimately, also during the PiS government, the agreement was annexed. – Instead of six hundred prisoners, thirty were employed – informs Maria Ejchart, deputy minister of justice.
The construction of the halls cost PLN 35 million of public money. So the deputy minister enumerates. – One job for a prisoner cost us PLN 1 million, says Maria Ejchart.
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The prison service notified the prosecutor's office “about the possibility of committing a crime to the detriment of the state treasury”, and Minister Bodnar wrote on the Internet that “it is worth explaining to the public how a party entrepreneur, a colleague, got a chance to run a profitable business using state money and what happened to this money later.” happened.”
What do the representatives of the previous government say about this? – I believe the senator (Golba – editor's note) that there was absolutely no bending or breaking of the regulations – comments Michał Wójcik, MP from Law and Justice and former deputy minister of justice.
What did the PiS program assume?
The prisoner labor program launched under PiS assumed that jobs for convicts – production halls and warehouses – would be created from public money. Entrepreneurs will rent them, employ prisoners there, and receive part of their remuneration costs from the state. The assumption is correct, but the current authorities say that there was a “whole series of abuses” in the program. The point is, among other things, that although there were other people willing, the company of a politician from the former Solidarna Polska, currently PiS, entered the prison in Rzeszów.
– This is an expropriation of the prison system in order to raise funds to maintain the party and its apparatus – comments Paweł Moczydłowski, former director general of the Prison Service.
There are many uncertainties surrounding the career of senator Mieczysław GolbaFakty TVN
Michał Woś was then deputy minister in Zbigniew Ziobro's ministry, supervising the prison system.
In Rzeszów, during the rule of Law and Justice, the company of a PiS politician was given a lucrative contract, and when it turned out that it could not cope with employing six hundred prisoners, the contract was annexed under PiS. And when it was already known that PiS would lose the elections, an agreement was signed giving the company compensation in the event of termination of the agreement before its end, i.e. within twelve years.
– This is an incredible sense of impunity, because it was believed that Minister Ziobro could do anything – sums up Paweł Moczydłowski.
Main photo source: tvn24