From the SAFE loan pool, four companies belonging to the state-owned Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ) are expected to receive approximately €800 million for the production of 155 mm ammunition, the Niezależna.pl portal has learned. This is more than two times less than the €2.3 billion allocated to a private company headed by Civic Coalition politician Paweł Poncyljusz. His firm has no independent production capacity and does not even hold a license to manufacture ammunition—unlike PGZ’s plants.
As we reported last week, the largest beneficiary among the projects selected for implementation under the SAFE program in the area of key ammunition production is a private entity—Polska Amunicja. The company is headed by former Civic Coalition MP and parliamentary candidate Paweł Poncyljusz.
Under SAFE, the company is set to receive as much as €2.3 billion for the production of approximately 300,000 rounds of ammunition.
Paweł Poncyljusz serves as its CEO. In 2019, he was placed on the Civic Coalition’s candidate list for the Sejm in the Rzeszów district and won a seat in parliament. In the 2023 elections, he failed to secure re-election. In 2024, he became CEO of MindMade, a company belonging to the WB Group. Since June 2024, he has also served as CEO of Polska Amunicja, a company owned by the WB Group and Ponar Wadowice.
The current government decided that the state would no longer hold any shares in the company. In September 2024, the Industrial Development Agency sold its majority stake (51 percent) in Polska Amunicja to the remaining consortium members—WB Group and Ponar Wadowice. The entity that, under earlier plans, was to build hundreds of thousands of shells for the Polish Armed Forces under state control has now ended up entirely in private hands.
PGZ to Receive Less
We have obtained further information. It turns out that companies within Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa are to receive around €800 million under SAFE for the production of 155 mm ammunition. Unlike the company headed by Poncyljusz, they already manufacture such ammunition and are capable of increasing output further.
Last week, Deputy Minister of National Defence Cezary Tomczyk was asked at a press conference about reports concerning funds for the private company. He responded:
“It is Polish, state-owned arms factories that will form the backbone of ammunition supplies for the Polish army, and nothing will change in this regard.”
However, the structure of the SAFE beneficiary list suggests that the government is favoring private entities.
Of course, the allocation of smaller funds from the EU loan does not mean a lack of state support for PGZ. At the beginning of July 2025, Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and the Ministry of State Assets signed agreements under which PGZ will receive more than PLN 2.4 billion to support the production of 155 mm ammunition. The funds from the Capital Investment Fund (FIK), administered by the Ministry of State Assets, will go to four PGZ companies involved in ammunition production: MESKO, DEZAMET, Nitro-Chem, and ZPS Gamrat.