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Post by Bonobo on Oct 30, 2011 21:41:10 GMT 1
Interior ministry in nepotism probe
28.10.2011 11:28
Warsaw prosecutors are expected to file for the detention of two out of six suspects accused of corruption in Poland’s interior ministry.
Accusations include accepting bribes to the amount of 211,000 zloty (50,000 euro), money laundering, and the failure to carry out professional duties.
Suspects embroiled in the corruption case include the former director of the interior ministry’s IT Project Centre, as well as a current officer at the Central Police HQ and two members of his family, who handed over sums of money on behalf of an IT company in Wroclaw, south-west Poland, prosecutor spokesman Zbigniew Jaskolski has informed.
Public prosecutors are to expected to file for the arrest warrants before the weekend.
The Central Anticorruption Bureau took two of the ministry’s IT Centre directors into custody on Wednesday, although the precise charges are not known, with information only released pertaining to bribes taken during the computerisation of the interior ministry.
Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry IT Centre has released a statement which informs that the charges “do not relate to [the Centre’s] current ‘eServices’ project”, but another project previously undertaken by the ministry.
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 28, 2016 0:25:51 GMT 1
Corruption in Poland has declined over time in the recent years. In international rankings it is below the world average but not insignificant. Within Poland, surveys of Polish citizens reveal that it is perceived to be a major problem. Poland ranked 38th in the 175 country listing the Corruption Perception Index for 2013 (higher ranking indicates higher corruption). It is the eighth successive year in which Poland's score and ranking have improved in the Index. A 2011 report by the Institute of Public Affairs also criticized the standards of public life in Poland, and the prevalence of nepotism and cronyism. A 2012 report jointly prepared by from the Institute of Public Affairs and Transparency International notes that the corruption in Poland is lower than in the past, when in mid-1990s it was "a phenomenon of a systemic nature". As described in that report, the World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (accessible here) for "rule of law" and "control of corruption" show steady improvement for Poland.[4] Poland has joined the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in 2000, implementing relevant legislation in 2001.[5] Poland has also made significant progress in combating corruption like the establishment of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau and the first anti-corruption strategy which was adopted in 2002. Corruption is a problem for businesses operating in Poland, although its levels have decreased in recent years. Political corruption constitutes a challenge to fair business as politicians use their positions to gain benefits, and practices of nepotism and cronyism are widespread. Poland's Criminal Code offences include active and passive bribery, bribery of foreign officials, extortion and money laundering. However, the government does not prosecute these offences effectively, and officials engage in corruption with impunity. Sectors most prone to corruption are public services and public procurement. Despite facilitation payments and gifts being criminalised, these practices are widespread. Pjotr, thank you for this elaborate lecture, you put so much heart, time and effort into it, as usual. The latest data appeared today.
Poland less corrupt?
27.01.2016 13:13
Poland has been ranked as the 30th least corrupt country in the world, five notches better than last year, by Transparency International in its latest Corruption Perceptions Index.
According to the annual report, last year the least corrupt country in the world was Denmark, followed by Finland and Sweden.
North Korea and Somalia tied in last – 167th – place, meaning they are seen as the world’s most corrupt countries.
Based on expert opinion, the Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide.
José Ugaz, the chairman of Transparency International, said: “The 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index clearly shows that corruption remains a blight around the world.”- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/238237,Poland-less-corrupt#sthash.GH2YGGbR.dpuf |
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Post by pjotr on Jan 28, 2016 1:45:16 GMT 1
You're welcome Bo. I am glad that in a few years Poland has become less corrupt. From 38th in the 175 country listing the Corruption Perception Index for 2013 to the the 30th least corrupt country in the world in "The 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index".
I hope that Poland be 25th and 20th in the near future. Both government and opposition should work on fighting corruption, nepotism and cronyism.
Despite the differences corruption and nepotism are a plague to society. They limit chances of people, spoil tax payers money, destroy and hinder initiatives and succes of good and honest people, who are truthfull, ethnical and hard working.
Corruption of any political colour should be fought against, wether it was a SLD-PSL (Leszek Miller, Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Jarosław Kalinowski); PiS-Liga Polskich Rodzin (LPR)-Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej (SRP) (Jarosław Kaczyński, Lech Kaczyński, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Andrzej Lepper and Roman Giertych) or the Platforma Obywatelska-PSL government of the last decade (Donald Tusk, Waldemar Pawlak).
I hope that the new government of PiS-Solidarna Polska won't allow corruption. Nepotism is already taking place. I hope that they keep promise and fight corruption. The government and the opposition should cooperate in fighting corruption, cronyism and nepotism despite their differences. PiS will have to realise that it is a government of all Poles and not only of government supporters and loyalists.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 7, 2017 22:55:41 GMT 1
www.rp.pl/Sadownictwo/170209417-9-pracownikow-Elektrowni-Szczecin-przyznalo-sie-do-zarzutow-korupcyjnych.html#ap-1
- PGE - Listed power group PGE is yet to assess potential losses which may have been incurred in connection with suspicion of corruption practices going back several years at its Szczecin power plant, the company said in a press statement. Instead of supplying high quality fuel to the power plant in Szczecin, certain businessman sold them poor fuel, after bribing top managers in the plant. Anti-corruption agents found hundreds of thousands in cash in accused workers` places.
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 5, 2017 18:47:13 GMT 1
Polish anticorruption squad detains five over World Youth Days contract
02.03.2017 15:00
Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) officers have detained five people in connection with the organization of World Youth Days in Poland last year.
Investigators are probing a contract between Poland's state-owned railway company PKP and a Warsaw business. The PLN 1.9 million (EUR 440,000) deal is suspected to have caused the rail firm losses.
The agreement concerned anti-terrorism measures at rail stations to cut the risk of a bomb attack as the country prepared to host throngs of pilgrims during World Youth Days with Pope Francis.
World Youth Days were held in Kraków, southern Poland, in July 2016. It was one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, drawing more than a million people from around the globe.
CBA spokesman Temistokles Brodowski said that among the five detained were a PKP official in charge of security and an officer from the Government Protection Bureau (BOR).
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 8, 2017 23:37:51 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 30, 2017 19:20:25 GMT 1
Ex-minister’s former company in corruption probe: report
24.04.2017 15:24
A firm that was co-owned by former treasury minister Aleksander Grad is under investigation in relation to a lucrative contract signed with a state-owned company, the Fakt daily has reported.
Fakt says that for many years, the MGGP company was partly owned by Aleksander Grad.
When he became treasury minister in 2007, in the Civic Platform (PO) government led by then-PM Donald Tusk, Grad gave his 25-percent stake in the company to his wife Małgorzata, Fakt said.
Under PO, the MGGP company – which according to its website deals in engineering and geoinformation services – won several lucrative contracts. One deal, which Fakt reported about a few months ago, was signed for some PLN 24.8 million, the paper said.
It added that it had seen new documents indicating that MGGP would earn significantly more.
The contract with a subsidiary of gas monopoly PGNiG included the maintenance of IT systems for 30 years, Fakt said. The service costs PLN 180,000 a month, the daily said. Over three decades, the bill could run up to PLN 64 million, according to Fakt.
MGGP can be considered a family business, Fakt said, adding that Paweł Grad’s wife Małgorzata is on the company’s board. The couple’s son Paweł is the deputy chairman of the company, it added.
Fakt reported that Poland's Central Anticorruption Bureau is investigating the matter.
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 26, 2018 22:22:35 GMT 1
Polish police officers suspected of tip-offs over road accidents
04.01.2018 10:58
Police officers who were allegedly bribed to tip off vehicle recovery companies about road accidents in Warsaw face up to ten years in jail.
The suspected police officers allegedly received over PLN 50,000 (EUR 12,000, USD 14,400) in total for informing recovery firms about when and where crashes had occurred, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Łukasz Łapczyński, a spokesman for the Warsaw District Prosecutor's Office, said that the suspects provided information from 2011 to April 2017, when they were detained.
The IAR news agency did not specify how many police officers are being investigated in the case.
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 16, 2018 22:52:02 GMT 1
newsmavens.com/news/aha-moments/2155/corruption-scandal-electrifies-polish-politics
Corruption scandal electrifies Polish politics
On March 31, 2018, the head of Poland's financial regulatory body met with a billionaire banker to allegedly offer him institutional protection in exchange for about 9.2 million euros. Last week, the affair was exposed by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Ada Petriczko
The ruling Law and Justice (PIS) party came to power on the promise to fight corruption. “We may not be as worldy as the previous government, but at least we are not corrupt,” was the PiS message over the past three years.
Now, one of the top state officials appointed under their rule -- the director of the Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), Marek Chrzanowski -- has been accused of soliciting a multimillion bribe from banker Leszek Czarnecki. Chrzanowski is a protege of another key figure of the political scene -- Marek Glapiński, the director of the National Bank of Poland (NBP).
As soon as the scandal broke out, Chrzanowski resigned from his post and the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, ordered state agencies to investigate the case. Zbigniew Ziobro, the country’s justice minister and prosecutor-general, announced that he would oversee the probe himself.
But no matter how hard party officials may try to present Chrzanowski as a technocrat rather than a political figure, the damage has been done -- and PiS's reputation is not the only thing at stake here.
On the international level, the scandal could taint the image of Poland’s financial sector, which has been one of Europe’s most reliable over the past decade, withstanding even the hardships of the 2008 crisis.
Details from the story:
The affair surfaced last week, when the daily “Gazeta Wyborcza” published a report based on a stenographic record of the meeting between the two men, which took place over half a year ago in Warsaw.
They met to discuss the financial troubles which Czarnecki’s Getin Bank found itself in. The banker grew suspicious when Marek Chrzanowski invited him to a private meeting in his office, alone, so he showed up carrying three recording devices.
Chrzanowski began the conversation by suggesting that there are people in the Financial Supervision Authority who would like to see Getin Bank go bankrupt, then bought out for 1 zloty (25 cents) and nationalized. But, he carried on, this scenario can be averted if Czarnecki hired a lawyer, Grzegorz Kowalczyk (who later turned out to be Chrzanowski’s family friend), for a certain wage that would depend on the worth of the bank.
During the key moment of the meeting, Chrzanowski allegedly took out a piece of paper and wrote “1%” on it, to indicate how much the lawyer would earn. Czarnecki estimates 1% of his bank’s worth to be about 40 million zloty (9.2 million euros).
Writing is a method often used during corruption proposals as it cannot be audio recorded.
The Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) is the financial regulatory authority for Poland. It oversees banking, capital markets, insurance, pension scheme and electronic money institutions.
Over the past 30 years, Leszek Czarnecki earned the nickname of Poland’s Warren Buffet for making some of the best investments in the country. However, Buffet’s empire never suffered the kind of troubles Czarnecki’s banks are now facing. Getin Bank saw its ratings downgraded by Moody's twice in the past year, most recently in October.
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 8, 2022 19:05:16 GMT 1
Corruption under PiS (Law and Justice) party is paradoxically higher than before. www.transparency.org/en/blog/corruption-thrives-as-rule-of-law-and-democratic-oversight-weaken-in-poland
CORRUPTION THRIVES AS RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRATIC OVERSIGHT WEAKEN IN POLAND
Grzegorz Makowski
04 February 2021
Batory Foundation
This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index sees Poland achieve its lowest score since 2012 and record a statistically significant decline of seven points. To observers of the country, the decline comes as no surprise: the downward trend, which has been exacerbated by the government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, was already visible in 2016, just one year after the United Right, an alliance of conservative political parties, came into power.
A concerning politicization of the Polish judiciary
The complete politicization of the Constitutional Tribunal, made possible by the appointment of purely political nominees as judges, is one of the main factors nurturing systemic corruption in Poland. If this was not enough, some judges of the current Polish Constitutional Tribunal are so-called “doubles”. They were placed in the Constitutional Tribunal in violation of the constitution, taking the seats of judges that had been appointed by the outgoing parliament but were then blocked by President Andrzej Duda, who was a candidate of ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Having full control over the Constitutional Tribunal, the ruling party introduced many changes that would normally be considered unconstitutional. They led to a drastic reduction in the independence of the common judiciary and prosecutors, both of which must now submit to political interference. The changes combined the positions of Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General and prevented the judicial community from nominating candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary – the constitutional body making judicial appointments and promotions.
The public administration suffered similar blows. Contrary to the constitution, the law on the civil service was amended, replacing what used to be a competitive recruitment for the highest positions with a party recommendation and lowering the competence requirements for candidates. It is estimated that by 2016, as a result, nearly one third of the highest-ranking government officials left civil service or were demoted.
A monopoly position aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis
Simultaneously, there was a takeover of public service media and state-owned companies, which include over a dozen of the largest Polish enterprises (such as the oil company PKN ORLEN or the largest bank in the country, PKO BP).
Power is now concentrated in the hands of the ruling party in a way unprecedented since the fall of communism. Law and Justice and its satellites use it to protect their own interests and expand their influence. In recent years, we have witnessed many corruption scandals involving top officials. To date, none of these cases has been fully prosecuted by law enforcement. Most did not even reach the judicial stage. Civic organizations, watchdogs, and independent media are attacked on government television and radio if they criticize the authorities.
After six years of rule, the government and its allies continue efforts to strengthen their monopoly position. Under the cover of the pandemic, presidential elections were held in a hurry, a decision considered to have helped the re-election of President Duda before the government’s response to the pandemic undermined support for the ruling party.
Under the banner of media “repolonization” the government wants to bring foreign-owned media outlets under Polish control, further silencing independent voices. PKN Orlen, the largest oil company in Poland and the whole Central and Eastern Europe, took over the media company Polska Press from the German owner Verlagsgruppe Passau. State-owned PKN Orlen now owns 20 regional dailies, 120 weeklies and 500 websites used by over 17 million Poles monthly, further tightening the government’s stranglehold on the media. It did so without prompting any vigorous reactions from the European Union.
A need for more international pressure
Until recently, the majority of Polish people didn’t seem too concerned with the government’s increasing authoritarianism. According to a 2017 public opinion poll, only 31% of respondents declared that corruption is a major social problem in Poland. However, in the fall of 2020 opposition to the government’s policies crystallized into widely supported protests, which started after the Constitutional Tribunal further tightened abortion laws in a ruling that made it almost completely illegal. Polls show that support for Law and Justice declined from over 40% at the end of 2019 to a little above 30 at the end of 2020.
It is however too early to know if this will lead to change. The next parliamentary elections are far away: by 2023, corruption will likely have spread further in the country with a little help from the socio-economic crisis caused by COVID-19.
The systematic breach of the rule of law that we witness in Poland is directly linked to corruption, as it invariably leads to monopoly of power, opacity in public decisions and the impunity of politicians and officials. The international community, including the experts co-creating the Corruption Perceptions Index, must strongly pressure Poland to uphold the rule of law.
The Polish government, as well as its counterpart in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, must receive a strong warning from democratic countries, international business and civil society around the world. Following this path means greater corruption, and it also deepens the political crisis, erodes the country’s international position, discourages investment and is a perfect breeding ground for deep socio-economic crises, which, during a pandemic, could prove catastrophic.
CPI
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