On Tuesday, a NIK inspector told government officials that the equipment bought during the pandemic by then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s Office did not meet requirements, and its use by medical personnel may have created a health threat.

A Government Accountability Team set up to pursue and punish wrongdoers who committed crimes during the eight-year rule of Poland’s previous socially conservative rightwing government of Law and Justice (PiS) took up the matter at its Tuesday sitting.

The team’s chair, Roman Giertych, an MP with Civic Coalition (KO), the main grouping in Poland’s governing coalition, said: “We have a whole range of irregularities identified by NIK… in the inspections that took place two years ago and in the inspection that is now concluding.”

In presenting the results of NIK’s inquiry, NIK inspector Paweł Tołwiński said that in April 2020, Morawiecki had ordered the procurement of PPE from State Treasury-owned companies KGHM Polish Copper, fuel firm Lotos Group, and the Industrial Development Agency (ARP SA).

The investigation revealed that in carrying out the order, Morawiecki’s Office had signed contracts with Treasury companies to buy goods with a total value of over PLN 500,000 (EUR 117.16 million). NIK found procurements to the tune of PLN 190 million (EUR 44.53 million) to have been “unreliable, uneconomical, and pointless,” the inspector told the sitting.

The audit inspector continued that even before Morawiecki issued his orders and the contracts were signed, the Ministry of State Assets had told KGHM and Lotos what to buy and from whom, as well as assuring them that the quality of the procured products would be certified.

Tołwiński also said that KGHM and Lotos merely acted as figureheads in the process, taking on the risk and responsibility of the procurements made on predefined conditions. He added that neither KGHM nor Lotos had any prior experience trading in medical items and that the Ministry of Health had no involvement at all in the process.

Another NIK inspector, Wojciech Zambrzycki, told the meeting that the quality of facemasks bought by KGHM for almost PLN 109 million (EUR 25.54 million) has been questioned multiple times by the body responsible for quality control.

He said the masks failed to meet specifications and may have created a risk by not preventing infection. He also said medical personnel’s health was threatened by products supplied by Lotos.