After the audit at PZU, we meet a team of advisors to the board who earned a lot from it, but there is no way to determine whether they worked for it at all. One of such advisors was the brother of the then minister Zbigniew Ziobro. – There will be applications to the prosecutor's office. Anyone who illegally withdrew a thousand zlotys, not to mention millions, from State Treasury companies or the state budget, will be prosecuted – announces Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski. Material from the magazine “Polska i Świat”. The entire issue is available on TVN24 GO.
PZU is the most recognizable brand in Poland, but according to the company's audit, it is also one of the largest and richest allies of the previous government. – Applications will be submitted to the prosecutor's office. Anyone who illegally withdrew a thousand zlotys, not to mention millions of zlotys, from State Treasury companies or the state budget, will be prosecuted – announces the deputy prime minister and minister of digitization Krzysztof Gawkowski.
The board of the state insurer – according to the report, which was partially presented by TVP – had as many as 18 advisors, including his brother Zbigniew Ziobrothen Minister of Justice. In various positions he earned almost five million zlotys.
Witold Kornicki explains in his statement that this is the total salary for eight years, because “he has a dozen or so years of international professional experience behind him” and “participated in hundreds of meetings, dozens of working groups and several strategic projects”.
– Every day you bring such information that an audit or something else has shown some incredible crimes – says Zbigniew Kuźmiuk from PiS. – I have been waiting eight months for even one verdict in any case – he adds.
“Nobody in the company saw them”
There is no verdict, but there is another PZU advisor who appears in the audit – the rector of the University of Warsaw, Alojzy Nowak, who once filed a complaint against a scientist who opposed Antoni Macierewicz, tried to cancel a lecture by a former deputy Commissioner for Human Rights and during the PiS government also sat on the supervisory boards of several state-owned companies. Thanks to PZU, he was supposed to earn four million zlotys.
In a statement sent to journalists, the University of Warsaw emphasizes that the rector had been associated with PZU since 2012, that such consulting is standard and that he had the university's consent to everything.
“He performed advisory tasks in accordance with the agreement”, “they included daily consultations with the president of the management board on strategic matters for the company, and the documents confirming this are in the company's files” – it was added.
Deputy Minister of State Assets Robert Kropiwnicki points out that “there are no traces that they did anything”. – Nobody saw them in the company, only documents were created to issue invoices to them – he points out.
PZU audit results revealedTVN Facts
Questions about the results of advisors' work
In another fragment of the audit, concerning advisors, we read that over the course of four years of full-time work, Professor Nowak appeared at the company's headquarters fewer than 30 times. How many times during the four months Zbigniew Ziobro's brother was personally at the company is unknown, but crucially, there is no trace of either of their work as advisors.
Senator of the Civic Coalition Krzysztof Kwiatkowski calculates that “there are no analyses and no documents confirming the performance of duties”. – Maybe they did everything in their thoughts, dreams and desires, and they realized what was temporal through monthly generous payments to the bank account – he estimates.
According to auditors, payments also went to circles close to Law and Justice, such as the Polska Wielki Projekt Foundation. The concentration of funds occurred, for example, in the Podkarpacie region or where PiS wanted to be strong, because, similarly to the Justice Fund, there was also an “overrepresentation” of funding for the Volunteer Fire Department.
Controversial subsidies
Former Prime Minister and former head of the Volunteer Fire Department, Waldemar Pawlak, when asked whether the Volunteer Fire Department was so underfunded under the PO-PSL government that it was necessary to provide fire engines for attendance, money from the Justice Fund and the PZU prevention fund, replied: “The pathologies of the way of governing affected various areas, including areas related to population protection.”
The PZU Foundation was supposed to operate in accordance with its statute, although it was noticeable that Catholic organizations, including the foundation of the currently imprisoned priest Michał O., and initiatives related to Lech Kaczynski. Money was found for an album dedicated to him, as well as a project for digital processing of Matejko's painting: “The Union of Lublin on the 450th anniversary of its establishment as a prototype of Lech Kaczyński's Three Seas Initiative”.
– I don't know if the circumstances described even took place – says Zbigniew Bogucki from PiS. – Again, we are talking about those who are judges in their own case. They care about incriminating Law and Justice – he adds.
The former minister of state assets, formally supervising PZU at the time, does not want to comment without having read the entire report. According to the audit, he himself “supposedly brought people for employment in files outside of any procedures”.
Main image source: TVN Facts