Justice ministry oversaw “corruption-generating mechanism”, finds Polish state auditor

A fund managed by Poland’s justice ministry has been operating “in violation of the basic principles of public spending”, allowing it to become a “corruption-generating mechanism”, the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has found.

In a report announced today, NIK said that 280 million zloty (€61 million) had been misspent. The office also announced that it has issued five notifications to prosecutors about potential crimes being committed. Those prosecutors are overseen by the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, who is also prosecutor general.

The findings are the latest salvo in a long-running conflict between the head of NIK, Marian Banaś, and the government that he previously served in as a minister. Banaś has himself been investigated over corruption allegations. In July, Ziobro, in his guise as prosecutor general, requested that Banaś’s legal immunity be lifted.

“The actions of the justice minister…resulted in wasteful spending of public funds and also fostered the emergence of a corruption-generating mechanism,” announced NIK today. Its accusations relate to the Justice Fund, which is meant to be used to support victims of crime, rehabilitate convicts, and prevent crime.

However, opposition politicians and media reports have regularly accused Ziobro of using the fund for political purposes by supporting allies and favoured ideological causes. NIK’s new findings appear to support such claims, revealing evidence of spending on activities apparently unrelated to the fund’s statutory goals.

In its audit, NIK found that only 34% of funds went to help victims of crime, and just 4% on rehabilitation of convicts. The remaining 60% was spent on other initiatives, often with little transparency.

In one example, subsidies were given for the monitoring of media to see how Christians are presented, notes Onet. This included analysing internet memes, news articles in liberal media outlets, as well as fantasy literature.

In another case, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (UKSW) received a subsidy to create a strategic communication model for counteracting defamation of Poland. NIK found that “no such model has been created”, “no [other] tasks have been completed”, and all 24 works produced under the project “were not related to the topic”.

Other items of spending raised concern over their recipients. One foundation received 10 million zloty, including almost 2 million zloty for administrative costs, but its registered headquarters was found to be a private apartment whose residents had never heard of the foundation.

Meanwhile, a Crime Victims Aid Network financed by the Justice Fund was found in 80% of audited cases to have given grants “to entities with no experience, often appointed ad hoc before tender contests”.

NIK also noted conflicts of interest in the distribution of funds. For example, deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski oversaw the Justice Fund but also worked at UKSW, where he was responsible for projects that received money from the fund, notes Onet.

In response to the report, Romanowski told Radio Plus that NIK’s accusations are “completely absurd”. He noted, for example, that 4% of spending goes on prisoner rehabilitation because that is what is stipulated in the Justice Fund’s ordinances.

“We do not pay attention to political considerations” in distributing funds, he claimed, arguing that, in fact, it is NIK that is using its audits as part of a “political struggle” against the government to divert attention away from Banaś’s alleged wrongdoing.

Main image credit: Katarzyna Czerwińska / Kancelaria Senatu (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

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.