The election campaign before the elections to the Sejm and the Senate has officially started. Other electoral committees submit applications for registration. On Thursday, among others, PiS and Trzecia Droga checked in. Since July, picnics promoting the Family 800 plus program have been organized with state money. The opposition sees them as part of PiS’s election campaign. We checked how much these picnics cost.
Rzeszow PLN 103 thousandRuda Slaska PLN 113 thousandKepice PLN 135 thousand – this is the cost of picnics promoting the Family 800 plus in these three cities only. – I grabbed my head, because if the arrival of the prime minister for a picnic is to cost us, taxpayers, about PLN 160,000, so that they can promote themselves there, then I just convert it to what we could realistically do with this money – she says Aleksandra Gajewska, PO MP.
– On average, such a picnic costs about PLN 100-110 thousand. (…) After all, there are several dozen, almost 30, standing aids for children with disabilities. These are real needs that the ministry could solve. And what does he do? It turns into an event company and organizes picnics all over Poland, so that politicians from Law and Justice, the entire United Right, can come there, distribute sausages, cotton candy and popcorn. We just don’t get it,” he adds.
Gajewska: the ruling team is having a great time and carrying out election rallies with our money, calling them 800 plus picnicsTVN24
Dizzying amounts
MPs Gajewska and Marchewka from PO, during the parliamentary inspection at the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, analyzed contracts for the organization of 19 picnics. All took place in July. According to the documents, organizing one picnic lasting several hours costs from PLN 23,000 to even PLN 159,000, which gives in total almost PLN 2 million.
PiS politicians attended each of these picnics. Either it was the prime minister, ministers and local deputies, or local government officials or voivodes from PiS. The organization of the event, which is to promote the Family 800 plus program in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, attended by the Minister of Family, Minister of Agriculture and MP Antoni Macierewicz, cost us PLN 132 thousand. Just a little less – PLN 128 thousand – we paid for a picnic in Dąbie – Minister Maląg also came there, or almost 160 thousand zlotys for organizing a picnic in Krotoszyn, where the prime minister also appeared next to the minister. – This is money that in no way serves to improve the fertility rate, but only to promote PiS politicians – believes PO MP Arkadiusz Marchewka.
In some contracts concluded by the Ministry of Family and Social Policy with picnic organizers, in addition to renting and securing the area, technical service, preparing sanitary facilities, organizing a place for conferences, buying gifts and gadgets, there were also points such as the creation of colorful braids and tattoos , the participation of three animals such as donkeys, llamas and alpacas, setting up a photo booth or a gate with the inscription “the governor invites you”. – Throughout August and until September, these picnics will be continued, so it will be millions of zlotys, which will be a hidden form of PiS’s election campaign – adds MP Marchewka.
PiS politicians – including the deputy finance minister – are trying to convince that the campaign promoting the Family 800 plus is also aimed at making Poles aware of how the burden on their household budgets has decreased. Two more picnics are planned for the coming weekend – each for over PLN 100,000.
Main photo source: TVN facts