WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish prosecutors are investigating whether the former prime minister lost public money after a state company bought personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic on his orders and some of it turned out to be unsafe.
Mateusz Morawiecki's actions during the pandemic have already come under scrutiny. A parliamentary commission has said it will inform prosecutors that his role in a plan to organise elections by postal vote during the pandemic may constitute a crime.
Morawiecki is one of several high-ranking politicians from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government that left office in December which the current pro-European administration led by Donald Tusk accuses of wrongdoing.
"We are at the beginning of this process, it will take a long time, it will be arduous," Piotr Skiba, spokesperson for the Warsaw District Prosecutor's Office, told reporters.
"It will require the analysis of a lot of documents, interviewing a lot of witnesses who for sure will have essential knowledge about the circumstances surrounding the purchase of these items, which didn't have... the required certificates and which were worth no less than 27 million zlotys ($6.72 million)."
The PiS press office was not immediately able to provide a comment from Morawiecki.
In 2020, Morawiecki ordered state-controlled companies including refiner Lotos to purchase PPE.
Skiba said separately in a statement that prosecutors would investigate whether Lotos' management caused financial damage to the company by buying PPE that didn't meet standards.
Skiba said prosecutors had been informed by the State Audit Office about the possibility of a crime being committed. The office also found that some equipment could have been dangerous for health service personnel.
The investigation will also look into the role of the head of Morawiecki's office at the time and other officials, Skiba said.
($1 = 4.0208 zlotys)
(Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Rod Nickel)
