“The entire process of clarifying this matter will involve the appointment of a team, and the MPs will submit their explanations. This team will, in a way, adjudicate the case and present its position,” said Law and Justice (PiS) parliamentary caucus leader Mariusz Błaszczak, referring to the controversy surrounding the sale of a plot of land through which one of the CPK lines is to run.
Land for CPK sold
On Monday, WP reported that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – just before PiS lost power in December 2023 – had approved the sale of a 160-hectare plot of land to the vice president of a private company, Dawtona. The sale took place despite the objections of the Central Communication Port authorities, for whose construction the land was crucial, as the high-speed railway line from Warsaw to CPK is to run through this area in Zabłotnia near Grodzisk Mazowiecki.
At the time, the land belonged to the National Support Centre for Agriculture (KOWR), which the owners of Dawtona had leased since 2008, and had previously sought to purchase. According to WP, in 2023, but before the sale transaction, then-Minister of Agriculture Robert Telus visited the company. The sale was formally completed on December 1, 2023; the price was PLN 22.8 million, while the current value could have increased many times over – estimates suggest it could be as high as PLN 400 million.
There are also suspicions of document manipulation involving Polish Waters, which, shortly before the sale, reclassified a watercourse as a drainage ditch, thereby making the transaction possible.
“We will get to the bottom of this”
Asked about the case on Tuesday on TOK FM radio, Błaszczak assured that it must be clarified. “And we will get to the bottom of it,” he declared.
“This case is indeed very strange, hence the suspension of our two MPs,” emphasized the PiS caucus leader. Following the Wirtualna Polska publication, PiS suspended former Minister of Agriculture Robert Telus and his deputy Rafał Romanowski, although Telus denied having any knowledge of the transaction.
When asked whether the suspended MPs had the opportunity to explain themselves, Błaszczak replied that “the entire process of clarifying this matter will involve the appointment of a team, and the MPs will submit their explanations. The team will, in a way, adjudicate the case and present its position,” he noted.
“We will present the results of the internal proceedings, and as for the court proceedings – only God knows how that will turn out,” added Błaszczak.