Head of Polish state forests dismissed after buying house from own organisation for 95% discount

Yesterday afternoon, deputy climate minister Edward Siarka announced on Twitter that Konieczny – who has headed State Forests since 2018, before which he was himself a deputy government minister – had been removed from his position. Siarka thanked Konieczny for “years of service for the Polish forests”.

The announcement came only days after two leading news outlets – Onet, a website, and Gazeta Wyborcza, a newspaper – published articles revealing that Konieczny had purchased a renovated 110-square-metre property in north-eastern Poland, belonging to Lasy Państwowe.

They reported that he had been granted a 95% discount, paying only 9,420 złoty (€2,000) for a house that was worth around 190,000 zloty (€41,000).

The purchase was possible thanks to a rule stating that, when State Forests sells real estate, pre-emptive rights are granted to employees that already live in the property and whose “centre of life” is there. They are entitled to a discount of up to 95%.

The transaction was discovered by Grzegorz Zubowicz, a former local politician for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party (which expelled him in 2017) and forester, who alerted the ministry and leading figures in PiS. Konieczny himself joined PiS in 2012.

Zubowicz claimed that Konieczny was wrongly allowed to take advantage of the regulations, as, although he had rented the property in question, he held a position in Lublin, a city in a different part of Poland.

Onet also noted that, in November 2019, the same month when he reportedly purchased the property, Konieczny raised the price limit for such transactions at State Forests from 100,000 zloty to 150,000 zloty. Just three months later, in January 2020, he reversed that decision. Onet says that the book value of the property was 101,040 zloty.

In response, state broadcaster TVP – which is regularly used to promote PiS’s message and attack its opponents – rejected the claims of Onet and Gazeta Wyborcza, private media outlets that are often critical of the government.

They cited State Forests’ spokeswoman Anna Malinowska, saying that the net book value of the property was in fact 97,000 zloty, therefore within the official limit. But she added that an expert’s evaluation priced the estate at almost 190,000 złoty, and this amount was used to calculate the discount.

Malinowska also responded to allegations that Konieczny had no right to purchase the property because he was not living there. She explained that, in order to be granted a 95% discount, the buyer needs only to rent the property and that, regardless of transfers around Poland, Konieczny always stayed in touch with the place.

“This is where his children went to school, he paid taxes here, he had a doctor here,” she explained. “Now he lives in Warsaw, but there, according to regulations, he isn’t entitled to a work apartment, so at the weekends he comes back here.”

Today, Siarka, the deputy climate minister, also took to Twitter to deny the “false information about the dismissal of Konieczny”. He said that the “decision was not related to the purchase of real estate from the State Forests with a discount. The director acquired the property legally”.

Main image credit: Adam Stepien / Agencja Gazeta