Polish ICT representatives try to reduce damage following recent scandals
Polish ICT sector representatives asked the government to start a broad discussion about reducing damage following recent corruption scandals in the ICT industry in Poland.
“We ask the government, and especially the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Administration and Digitalization and the Ministry of Interior to follow other European countries and begin broad talks with formal representatives of the ICT sector in Poland,” the Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications (PIIT) stated in its recently-issued memorandum, as cited by a Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna March 31.
Two years after the beginning of the so called “info/ICT affair,” 39 people have been charged in the affair, including managers from Polish and international corporations and government officials. This, however, is considered to be only the beginning, according to investigators from the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA).
“Due to cooperation with the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) we received over one thousand CDs with possible evidence,” said CBA investigators. “The data is being analyzed at present and selected material will be translated afterwards.”
The material is a result of FBI searches conducted in the offices of ICT giants such as IBM, HP, Cisco and Oracle, the paper said. Through its analysis, the CBA hopes to verify whether international ICT concerns knowingly and intentionally created special funds to bribe Polish government officials who were responsible for awarding of the ICT public tenders.
Nevertheless, managers of some Polish companies, like Netline and IT.expert, have already been charged with participation in such procedures.
“Currently the CBA is running inspections in several government institutions, including the Ministry of Justice,” said Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson of CBA, as cited by the daily. Dobrzysnki added that in parallel to the aforementioned inspection, also other steps are being undertaken, including a probe in the Central Geodesy and Cartography Office and an investigation in the Central Road Transport Inspectorate.
In its memorandum PIIT highlights that Polish ICT market is worth PLN 84 bln, and that is almost 5 percent of Polish average GDB and that the sector employs almost 170,000 people. Public sector contracts, although quite often misinterpreted as a whole market, equal only 15 percent of total ICT companies’ revenues.
Jerzy Kwiecinski, a former deputy minister for regional development, countered that it is possible that majority of ICT companies revenues come from private sector. However, public sector contracts are very profitable.
“Maybe the majority of ICT sector revenue comes from private sector, but let’s face it: contracts in public sector bring considerable profits,” said Kwiecinski, as cited by the daily. “Over PLN 3.6 bln from ‘Digital Poland’ program plus additional money from other programs supporting research and development, will be allocated to new ICT systems in the new EU perspective starting from 2015.“
Kwiecinski also pointed out that growing competition on the ICT market in Poland for EU funds, is one of the reasons behind PIIT initiative to downsize damage connected with corruption and bribery scandals.
“There is a growing competition on the market for EU funds. Part of contracts has already been awarded to the governmental Central Computer Centre (COI),” stated Kwiecinski, ac cited by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
