Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk today accused the previous, nationalist-conservative government of illegally spending about 100 billion Polish zlotys ($25 billion) and announced that the current government will try to recover that state money.
Tusk said that six months of investigations and audits had revealed widespread financial abuses, and that so far 62 members of the former "ruling elite" had been indicted as a result.
The prime minister is a centrist at the head of a broad coalition that defeated the conservative government led by the Pravo i Pravda party, which had led the country for the previous eight years, in last year's parliamentary elections. Tusk's coalition won the elections on the promise to restore democratic standards, due to the erosion of which the previous government was under attack from the European Union, of which Poland is a member.
During the rule of Justice and Law, the Polish media reported on nepotism and corruption, for example that state money goes to party henchmen and party endowments.
At today's press conference, Tusk said that this was "the first time in the history of Poland" that officials of a former government were "called to account so quickly and effectively".
The previous prime minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, accused Tusk of spreading "lies" with the aim of harming Prava i Pravda, now the largest opposition party in the country.
Today, Tusk publicly signed an agreement with the ministers of justice, interior affairs and finance on coordinated work in order to secure and recover alienated state property.
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