The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has notified prosecutors of its belief that a crime has been committed by the Polish National Foundation (PFN), a body tasked with promoting Poland abroad. NIK says the PFN has failed to provide it with documents required in order to conduct an audit of the foundation.
On Friday, NIK – a state agency tasked with auditing public spending and management of public property – announced that it had informed prosecutors of “facts justifying the suspicion of a crime being committed by the board of the Polish National Foundation”.
Najwyższa Izba Kontroli w związku z kontrolą działalności Polskiej Fundacji Narodowej skierowała do prokuratury zawiadomienie o podejrzeniu popełnienia przestępstwa przez zarząd Polskiej Fundacji Narodowej: https://t.co/UU2IHWVg0s #KontrolaNIK pic.twitter.com/1EhrEWT8vI
— Najwyższa Izba Kontroli (NIK) (@NIKgovPL) April 9, 2021
It noted that, in November last year, it initiated an audit of the foundation’s finances. This had followed “regular public discussion” of “the need to introduce greater transparency in the expenditure of the PFN”, which is funded with hundreds of millions of zloty from state-owned companies.
However, the foundation’s board “did not provide [NIK’s] auditors with access to documents enabling them to carry out audit activities”, says NIK. This, believes the office, constitutes a crime of “obstructing an inspection”, which carries a potential prison sentence of up to three years.
In response, the PFN issued a statement saying that it does not believe its activities are subject to oversight by NIK because it is “a private entity without public funds”. It was therefore “surprised” to be accused of a crime.
Oświadczenie Polskiej Fundacji Narodowej w związku z komunikatem @NIKgovPL z 9 kwietnia 2021 r.https://t.co/5WNUrOnAMg
— Fundacja_PFN (@Fundacja_PFN) April 9, 2021
The PFN, established in 2016 soon after the Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power and given an initial annual budget of 100 million zloty (€22.1m) provided by 17 state-owned companies, has aroused controversy from the outset.
Although founded to promote Poland abroad, in its first full year of operation the PFN’s biggest outlay – of 8.4 million zloty – was on a domestic advertising campaign in Poland itself to support the government’s controversial overhaul of the judiciary.
A court later ruled that the campaign’s activities “not only do not promote and protect Poland’s image, but the complete opposite: they weaken it significantly”, and therefore contravened the PFN’s statute.
The foundation has also been accused of wasteful spending, including paying almost €1 million for a yacht as part of two around-the-world cruises to mark the centenary of Poland regaining independence that together cost over 43 million zloty. A further 2.5 million was spent on a two-minute video featuring Mel Gibson to celebrate the centenary.
A yacht controversially bought by the state-funded Polish National Foundation with the aim of promoting Poland around the world will be stuck in a US port for weeks after suffering serious damage. Repairs could cost hundreds of thousands of zloty https://t.co/titknT9yKz
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 14, 2019
In September 2019, documents obtained by website Onet indicated that the PFN paid 20 million zloty to communications firm White House Writers Group for promoting Poland in the US.
Onet claimed that parts of this money were spent on projects that appeared to have minimal impact – such as a YouTube channel that at the time had attracted only 13 subscribers and an Instagram account with only 51 followers.
In response, the PFN accused Onet, which is German-Swiss owned, of being a “foreign media group” trying to influence the campaign for elections taking place in October that year. The culture minister, Piotr Gliński, accused Onet of producing “pure propaganda” because it “has an interest in undermining…the Polish state”.
NIK has previously raised concern about the PFN. In 2018, it published an audit of the spending of nine out of the 17 state-owned companies that were founding funders of the PFN. It concluded that they have “no influence on how their money is spent” by the PFN, which showed a lack of transparency in its activities.
However, NIK has itself become the centre of controversy and political disputes in recent years. In 2019, its newly appointed president, Marian Banaś – who had previously served as finance minister – was accused of links to criminal groups and was investigated by anti-corruption authorities.
Banaś has denied wrongdoing and rejected calls by the prime minister to resign.
Main image credit: P. Tracz / KPRM (under public domain)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
