Orlen CEO-turned-MEP testifies in visa scandal involving PiS officials

4 months ago 16

The former CEO of Poland’s state-owned petrol giant and newly-elected PiS MEP Daniel Obajtek will testify on Tuesday before the parliamentary committee investigating the visa scandal, in which former PiS officials are accused of fast-tracking visa applications for migrants in exchange for money when the party was in power.

Orlen is facing a growing number of investigations into its conduct during Obajtek’s six years in office, including using the illegal “visa-for-money” scheme to recruit workers for the company’s Olefins III petrochemical plant.

According to the former head of the committee, Michał Szczerba, now an MEP (Civic Coalition, EPP), the then deputy foreign minister, Piotr Wawrzyk, accelerated the processing of the applications of migrants who were to build the Olefins III plant.

But Obajtek denies any wrongdoing.

“All responsibility regarding recruiting workers lies in the hands of the contractor. Orlen had no right to choose the employees who worked on the investment,” he told Euractiv.

He also explained that Orlen had an engineering, procurement and construction contract with two other companies, Hyundai Engineering of Seoul and Tecnicas Reunidas of Madrid, which allowed the owner to transfer the full risk of design, procurement and construction to the contractor.

“Secondly, those were not illegal migrants but legally employed workers,” he added.

If anyone was to be called to testify, Obajtek said it should be the CEOs of Hyundai and Tecnicas Reunidas rather than Orlen’s ex-chief.

Obajtek was criticised for not coming to testify despite being summoned three times by the committee. He explained that with the election campaign underway and his promise to do so, Szczerba wanted to use the police to bring him before the committee, but the court ruled that this was an excessive measure.

For Obajtek, the rush to summon him during the election campaign is the best proof that the intentions of the committee, which is dominated by ruling party MPs, were political.

Polish media reported that he was using his connections with companies linked to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to hide from the committee in a luxurious penthouse in Budapest. “In my free time, I can be where I want, and there is no need to explain,” Obajtek said in response to the accusations.

Szczerba, on the other hand, points to Obajtek’s clear links to the visa scandal, which must be investigated. “The documents we have collected show that Daniel Obajtek, as the president of Orlen, acting through his associates and directors, exerted pressure on Wawrzyk (to facilitate migration procedure for Olefins III workers),” he said in May.

He did not respond to Euractiv’s request for comment before the publication of this article.

The cash-for-visa scandal concerned alleged corruption in the granting of travel visas by officials of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish Consular Service under the former conservative PiS (ECR) government.

Most of the recipients left Poland for other Schengen countries or North America. According to critics, up to 350,000 visas may have been illegally issued in exchange for bribes.

Seven people were initially charged, three of whom were remanded in custody. None were state officials.

When the PiS was replaced in power by the coalition led by Donald Tusk, the new ruling camp decided to set up a parliamentary committee to investigate the visa scandal.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)