Warsaw has lost the fortune equivalent to the cost of building 40 metro stations

Several days ago, Minister Patryk Jaki, a chairman of the Verification Commission dealing with reprivatization in Warsaw, presented a report summarizing the reprivatization decisions made by all presidents of this city after 1989.

It shows that during this period about 4.2 thousand reprivatisation decisions were issued, of which 3.1 have been examined by the Commission; the estimated value returned was about PLN 20.4 billion, in addition, compensations of PLN 1.2 billion were paid, which means that Warsaw’s total losses on this account amount to approximately PLN 21.6 billion.

According to the Commission’s estimates (based on the results of an audit carried out in recent months by the Warsaw City Hall), among all the reprivatization processes investigated, unlawful ones amount to over PLN 12.2 billion.

As reported by the Commission, following reprivatisation processes carried out in this way, Warsaw has lost its assets for which it was possible to build as many as 40 metro stations, or 19 new bridges on the Vistula River, or 3.8 thousand nurseries or as many as 35 football stadiums.

The Commission’s report also shows that presidents first associated with the Democratic Union, then the Freedom Union, and finally the Platform, issued as much as 78% of return decisions, while the return decisions issued during the presidency of the late Lech Kaczyński accounts for only 5% of return decisions, although in the entire period which was examined, the legal status of reprivatization did not change.

What is more, as regards payment of damages in connection with reprivatization, the total amount in the years 2003-2016 amounted to PLN 1.18 billion, of which PLN 1.14 billion was paid during the Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz presidency (only PLN 40 million of claims were paid in during other presidencies).

We remind you that at the end of April this year, the Verification Commission presented a report on extortion of both funding and real estates in kind by a group of attorney Robert N. (for many years a dean of the Warsaw Bar Association, and a brother of an official employed in the Ministry of Justice during the governments of PO-PSL, beneficiary of many millions of zlotys derived from this procedure).

This report showed that in 2010-2015 the president of the capital city of Warsaw issued to Robert N. group up to 82 compensation decisions on the basis of which PLN 120 million of compensation was paid from the city budget.

It turned out that from this amount as much as PLN 70 million was obtained by close relatives of attorney Robert N, the above-mentioned justice clerk Marzena K. and Janusz P.; now all of them are in custody in connection with this scandal and just yesterday the prosecutor sent another indictment to the court.

But this group swindled not only money, but also real estate in kind, as the Verification Commission has established. Attorney Robert N. took part in the return of 46 such properties in Warsaw (each of them worth several dozen million zlotys). Although the Commission does not claim that all these reimbursement decisions were fraudulent, there were 4 such decisions examined in depth (Chmielna 70, Poznańska 14, Marszałkowska 43 and Mokotowska 63), up to three of which were unlawful. In connection with this, the Commission resolved that the earlier reprivatization decisions taken by the President of Warsaw would be invalid and these properties were transferred to the capital of the country.

This is only part of the reprivatization decisions, however, particularly shocking, because it concerns the recent head of the Warsaw Bar Association, as well as high officials of the capital city of Warsaw.

As it also turned out, in the case of returning the property at 70 Chmielna Street, a high official of the Warsaw City Hall, demanded half of the shares in that property, i.e. at least PLN 80 million, the highest proven bribe in the history of the Third Republic.

Author: Zbigniew Kuźmiuk

Born on 19 September 1956 in Komorowo, Mazowieckie Voivodeship. Doctor of economic sciences. A graduate of the Kielce University of Technology in Kielce, Faculty of Economics in Radom and the Main School of Planning and Statistics in Warsaw - currently the Warsaw School of Economics - at the Faculty of Finance. From 1979 to the present moment he is a lecturer at the University of Technology and Humanities (formerly the Radom University of Technology and the Higher Engineering School in Radom). He was the Voivode of Radom, the Minister, a member of the Council of Ministers, the President of the Government Center for Strategic Studies, the Marshal of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. In June 2004, he obtained a mandate of the Deputy in elections to the European Parliament. He had a seat in the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Member of the Parliament of the 4th term (he was the chairman of the Sejm Local Self-Government and Regional Policy Committee of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland). He was a Member of the Parliament of the 7th term (he worked in the Public Finance Committee and the Local Government and Regional Policy Committee). In May 2014 he obtained a mandate of the Deputy in elections to the European Parliament. He works at the Budgets Committee and the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee.