“The situation in which a minister of the Polish government is someone who, in the recent past, worked for a company controlled by the regime of a country hostile to us is extremely troubling,” Paweł Jabłoński warned in a recent parliamentary inquiry addressed to the minister-coordinator of the special services. Tomasz Siemoniak did not answer the questions posed, casting an even greater aura of mystery over Wojciech Balczun.
It was on 23 July of this year that the wider public became acquainted with Wojciech Balczun, then newly appointed Minister of State Assets in Donald Tusk’s new government. Just two weeks later, Piotr Nisztor published two extensive articles devoted to the new minister in Gazeta Polska.
“Sluggishness in the fight against corruption and a ‘tsarist’ salary – these were among the accusations made several years ago against Wojciech Balczun, then president of Ukrainian Railways, by Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure. However, doubts surrounding his actions and relationships in Ukraine go much further. Among the close acquaintances of the head of the Ministry of State Assets is, for example, a former Ukrainian deputy minister who two years ago founded a weapons-trading company in London. Their paths crossed not only in Ukraine but also in the regional Upper Silesian Fund,”
we read in the August issue of Gazeta Polska.
Relying, among other things, on these publications, Law and Justice (PiS) MP Paweł Jabłoński submitted questions to Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister-coordinator of the special services.
“The situation in which a minister of the Polish government is someone who, in the recent past, worked for a company controlled by the regime of a country hostile to us is extremely troubling,”
he emphasized in his inquiry.
Do the Polish services know Balczun’s past? What tasks did he carry out for the company controlled by Russia? How much money did he receive for this work? Jabłoński presented Siemoniak’s response. In short, there is no possibility of answering these questions because the information cannot be made public.
“I respect this approach – classified information must be protected without exception. Of course, I will apply for access to it through the proper procedure provided for by the Act on the Protection of Classified Information. However, the very fact that such circumstances apply to a minister managing a multibillion-złoty portfolio of strategic state-owned companies should be known to the public,”
Jabłoński noted.
He concluded by appealing to Minister Balczun to “publicly explain his ties to Russian entities.”