Polish president and PM defend Covid relief fund manager after criticism by state TV

Poland’s public broadcaster, which is widely considered a mouthpiece for government, has sparked a storm by criticising the head of a state fund overseeing Covid relief subsidies. The dispute has drawn in Poland’s most senior politicians and hinted at cracks in the ruling coalition.

On Tuesday, the main evening news on TVP – which is regularly used to promote the government’s policies and criticise its opponents – broadcast a segment accusing Paweł Borys, head of the Polish Development Fund (PFR) and seen as a close ally of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, of negligence.

In response, senior figures – including President Andrzej Duda and Morawiecki himself – have come to Borys’s defence. A deputy prime minister, Jarosław Gowin, accused TVP of “pseudo-journalism”.

The news report in question said that a criminal group had extorted nearly 200,000 zloty (€43,000) from the PFR. It suggested that this was made possible by poor oversight by its managers, with Borys named directly.

Police were shown arresting men accused of pimping at a nightclub and explained that during the operation it turned out that they had received funds as part of the government’s “anti-crisis shield” programmes, which have financially supported businesses during the pandemic.

Over footage of pole dancers interspersed with images of the PFR logo and Borys himself, the material called the findings “scandalous” and “shameful” and noted that the fund had not “conducted in-depth oversight of the companies that received state help”.

The report also linked Borys with the main opposition party, Civic Platform (PO), by noting that when PO was previously in government he had been the director of a state-owned bank.

Responding to the report, Borys wrote that the “personal libel” made him “sad”. He also pointed out that the journalist responsible for the segment had mixed up PKO BP (where Borys had worked) with another state-owned bank, Pekao SA (which was mentioned in the material).

“The PFR Financial Shield protects 3.5 million jobs” and “counteracts abuses” by cooperating with the National Revenue Administration (KAS) and the Central Bureau of Investigation of the Police (CBŚP), wrote Borys. “Sad and embarrassing, but you have to do your own thing.”

The PFR then also issued a statement emphasising that, since April 2020, it has given financial aid to 370,000 mainly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and that it had worked together with KAS, CBŚP as well as the Internal Security Agency (ABW).

While the state broadcaster TVP is often used as a government mouthpiece, its CEO, Jacek Kurski, has also been reported to be in a “tactical alliance” with Zbigniew Ziobro, the justice minister, leader of junior coalition party United Poland (Solidarna Polska) and widely seen as a rival to Morawiecki.

Last year, a segment on TVP’s evening news – produced by the same reporter as this week’s piece – criticised the prime minister’s chancellery and PFR for placing adverts in “radically anti-government” media outlets.

Such incidents have come amid growing tension within the ruling coalition, which is led by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party alongside the hardline United Poland and the more moderate centre-right Agreement (Porozumienie).

Disagreement between the three saw the coalition reportedly on the verge of collapse last autumn. An agreement was reached for it to continue, but unease between the partners – and sometimes open criticism of one another – has subsequently continued.

After TVP’s material about Borys was broadcast on Tuesday, a number of senior figures came to his defence. In a statement on Facebook, Morawiecki said he was “surprised” by the “unfair and absurd innuendo attack”.

“It is a sad paradox that a man who made a great contribution to the rapid development of well-functioning [anti-crisis] shields is being attacked personally, without any justification,” the prime minister wrote, and concluded that “bad intentions are always very clear”.

President Andrzej Duda also commented without directly addressing the accusations. “Everyone did their best to help. I greatly appreciate the contribution of the Polish Development Fund in combating the effects of the crisis,” he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Gowin – who is the leader of Agreement, tweeted that “it was clear from the very beginning that the key to saving thousands of firms was the pace of action and that there was a risk of fraud”. But “these abuses were to be and are being eliminated by the services”, he added.

However, a leading figure in United Poland, MP Janusz Kowalski, took to Twitter to reinforce the criticism of Borys. He noted that not only had Borys worked at a state-owned bank under the PO government, but that Morawiecki had himself been an adviser to PO prime minister Donald Tusk.

Main image credit: Adam Guz/KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.