“These people should be held accountable for this, because it’s big money, wasted and unused by Poles. They should be in jail for this” – said Przemysław Czarnek, Law and Justice (PiS) MP, on Radio Republika, speaking about the KPO scandal.
Yesterday, Donald Tusk once again commented on the increasingly loud KPO affair.
He raised the topic during a press conference and shared a rather interesting theory, launching yet another attack against the United Right government.
Tusk: “we had to spend it in time”
As we recall, in the KPO scandal it came to light how the funds from the National Recovery Plan (KPO) were being spent. Money that was theoretically meant to revive the hotel and restaurant sector was being spent on rather absurd purposes. A tanning bed in a pizzeria, yachts, overnight stays in “kebab shops”, or expensive cars – these are just a few examples.
However, according to Donald Tusk’s thesis: “we also inherited a very serious problem. Namely, a two-year delay. Unlike other European countries, my government not only had to unblock these funds, but also had to – literally stand on our heads – to manage to spend them in time”.
The problem with the entire KPO, not just the percentage of funds spent on the hotel and restaurant sector, was that Poland – due to PiS-era blocking – might not have had time to spend these funds. […] Therefore, various ways were sought to get as much money as possible to Polish beneficiaries as quickly as possible, because otherwise these funds would be lost. 100% of the responsibility for this years-long mess falls on our predecessors, who blocked it, thus giving us very little time to be able to spend the funds well – and to make sure the funds reached Polish companies. – Tusk thundered yesterday.
Czarnek: “they should be in jail for this”
It is worth recalling here that it was Tusk’s own team, then in opposition, that made every effort to ensure Poland did not receive the money on time. Brussels at the time cited a “lack of rule of law in Poland”.
And that was what Przemysław Czarnek from Law and Justice (PiS) spoke about today on TV Republika.
“Of course it’s the end [of KPO], because it’s the last moment to use it. We certainly won’t be able to use these funds” – he assessed at the outset.
He continued: “someone might recall that the 1.2 billion they allocated to this absurd project is the same amount we needed, for example, for the sectoral skills centre – that is, modern vocational education, which we created anyway with Minister Machałek, and for which we found alternative funding through the PFR“.
“Because these KPO funds, which were supposed to go for this, were blocked by Tusk and others” – he added.
In the former Minister of National Education’s opinion – “these people should be held accountable for this, because it’s big money, wasted and unused by Poles. They should be in jail for this”.