With regard to Mr. Patryk Jaki's entry of May 21, 2024, the editorial team of “Czarno na bibie” fully supports all information disclosed in reportage “Money for nothing”.
Mr. Jaki's allegations are untrue, and the material was produced in accordance with the highest journalistic standards. It is disgraceful to suggest that a journalistic report led to the death of one of the people featured in it. Below we publish our response to the allegations made by Mr. Patryk Jaki (when quoting them, we keep the original spelling). We do not respond to those that constitute insinuations about our journalistic independence.
“Banasi's NIK submitted 5 notifications to the prosecutor's office. Facts: The foundation has already won 4 cases in court. Which, of course, did not fit into 28 minutes of material.”
In the report, we clearly inform that “of the five notifications issued by the Supreme Audit Office after the audit, four were discontinued by the prosecutor's office – under the previous government. One, regarding subsidy fraud, is under investigation by the National Prosecutor's Office, which is investigating the Justice Fund scandal.” Since the investigators discontinued the proceedings, court cases could not proceed. There is no knowledge of any other cases pending in court. Perhaps the MEP calls the “dismissal” a “court victory”.
“TVN writes, the foundation received PLN 9 million for this project. Facts: This competition was for approximately PLN 6 million. In fact, the foundation received PLN 850,000, of which PLN 500,000 was given to the Ministry of Justice.”
TVN24 informs in the report and also states in its description in TVN24 GO that Ministry of Justice admitted foundation in two competitions in fact PLN 9 million. The amount of funding awarded in one of the competitions is PLN 5.1 million, in the other – almost PLN 4 million. He provides such amounts in his report NIK (p. 56), which we refer to. We do not know what amount of PLN 6 million he is talking about Patryk Jaki.
Moreover, in the report we clearly say that “of the PLN 5 million awarded (under one of the subsidies – editor's note), the Ex Bono Foundation received over PLN 800,000, of which – by the time the contract was terminated – it managed to spend over PLN 300,000. She had to return the rest.”
“TVN writes that it did not help anyone. Facts: in fact, even the biased report of the Supreme Audit Office admits that it helped the largest number of people from the audited entities at that time, i.e. 563 out of 690, i.e. 82%. The highest rate – below is an excerpt from the report.”
There is no statement in the report that the foundation did not help anyone. However, we quote reports from the Supreme Audit Office's files from victims of crimes who did not receive help from the Ex Bono foundation (“Ex Bono never helped us, I have never met anyone from this organization. We were deprived of help”, “Ex Bono did not provide us with any support, phone didn't answer”).
“TVN keeps repeating this lie about the foundation's headquarters. Facts: It shows an unelegant-looking building, knowing that it was only a place to receive correspondence (so as not to increase costs) and the foundation's activities were carried out elsewhere and people were received in a modern building in the city center. Moreover, when a reporter comes there after 6 years, not everyone knows the entity. However, there is no mention of it. Below is the building where people were welcomed.
The building and the address in Opole that we showed in the report are – according to the entry in the National Court Register – still the headquarters of the foundation. The material contains information that the owner of the property – with whom the reporter spoke – rented a box to the foundation.
The photo of the building that Patryk Jaki attached to his entry is not a “modern building in the city center” of Opole, but an office building in Tychy, where the foundation organized an aid point in one of the rooms.
“The foundation had no experience. Facts: This is not true. FS is a fund aimed at helping victims, among others in road accidents. The Foundation conducted effective educational and road prevention activities throughout the city.
In the report, we say clearly, citing the Supreme Audit Office, that the foundation had no experience in the task for which it applied for funding, i.e. directly helping crime victims.
The material includes information – in the statement of Paweł Gibuła from the Supreme Audit Office – that “previously, the foundation implemented only one task with a budget of PLN 4,000 and it was a road traffic safety training in cooperation with the Opole City Hall.” He adds that Ex Bono “has never carried out any task directly related to helping crime victims.”
“The foundation should not have won the competition because it did not meet the conditions, i.e. a) it did not have the right staff b) it did not have a contract for the place of business: Facts: This allegation is absurd. The staff was the strength of the project. 9 first contact people, 10 lawyers, 12 psychologists, 2 psychiatrists, including educators with approximately 15 years of experience working in MOPS, etc. None of the competing offers even came close to this quality. As for the places of business, they have changed in relation to the offer since they were submitted almost 8 months passed before the subsidy was granted, no one keeps the premises for that long – they want to rent them. So the activity was carried out in premises that were vacant after receiving the subsidy, which is not prohibited.
In the report, we quote the conclusions of the Supreme Audit Office auditors and what could be read in the files. As Paweł Gibuła from the Supreme Audit Office says in the material, “as the audit showed, the foundation had absolutely no premises or human resources.”
We are unable to compare the details of the Ex Bono offer and “competitive offers”. Only their authors/applicants and representatives of the Justice Fund have access to them. We are surprised to read that MEP Jaki has such details. On what basis and when did he gain access to them?
“actually, a suggestion that I helped the foundation in MS. If so, why did the foundation lose one competition earlier and then two more in MS? Why was the contract in MS terminated quickly? Does it not fit the narrative?”
The report does not contain any information or suggestion that Patryk Jaki helped the foundation.
However, we would like to inform you that the person who had informal connections with the foundation (including access to its account, preparation of documents, family connections with the president) and was involved in its defense during the Supreme Audit Office audit is Małgorzata Wilkos – a councilor of the club PIS. She has also been the director of Patryk Jaki's parliamentary office for many years. Initially, she did not answer our questions about her involvement in Ex Bono's activities, including whether the fact of being the director of Patryk Jaki's office influenced the granting of the grant to the foundation. We also asked the MEP himself about this, but – as we report in the report – he did not answer.
“Why was the contract at MS” with the Ex Bono foundation quickly terminated, asks Patryk Jaki and insinuates that we did not provide this information because “it does not fit the narrative.” Well, the information is clearly provided in the material and the answer to this question appears in the graphics. The contract was terminated after an inspection by the ministry, during which irregularities were found. In the material, we list – based on the Supreme Audit Office's audit files – some of them: “4 non-functional aid points; lack of legal assistance at 3 aid points; use of 3 different addresses of the foundation's headquarters; lack of information boards on the activities of aid points; unreliable documentation.”
Main photo source: Marcin Obara/PAP