Polish steel industry smelting plagued by backhanders
Scrap metal is often illegally mixed with non-metal elements to increase its weight.
The Polish steel industry is dealing with a potentially dangerous bribery problem that may also be putting production at risk, the Polish media reported in May 2014.
“It is a common phenomenon,” Stefan Dzienniak, CEO of the Polish Steel Association, told Polish business daily Puls Biznesu. “Suppliers unload scrap metal onto so-called cubicles (steel boxes) where apart from scrap metal there are also elements of various non-steel equipment or old radiators filled with water and welded. This increases the load’s weight, but the radiator with water is like a bomb in the forge.”
As the rumor in the industry goes, employees at steel smelters have been accepting backhanders from scrap suppliers for turning a blind eye when these unload scrap. The scrap typically includes a variety of materials that are non-steel and are added to the scrap to increase its weight, and therefore artificially raise the value of the scrap.
The cubicles mixed with other waste and materials that have nothing to do with steel are called “cookies” in the industry slang. They can potentially be very harmful to the smelter’s employees, and they minimize the profit because there is less usable resources but they are more expensive due to weight surplus.
Dzienniak told the paper that one solution he found while working as a smelter in Dabrowa Gornicza (now run by ArcelorMittal Poland), was organizing a public unpacking of the cubicles to check if it contained steel scrap. According to Dzienniak, that method worked and helped to detect a group of scheming employees.
Polish scrap suppliers are far from limiting themselves to just Poland. Their activities have been spotted in the neighboring Czech Republic, Slovakia, and most recently also in Germany.
Photo courtesy of Erickreyeslopez
