RZECZPOSPOLITA informs of a top secret investigation into corruption of public sector officials in Lower Silesia.
May sound nothing out of the ordinary, but a list of names which are allegedly involved in the affair include some of the key witnesses in the ongoing Blackjack Scandal. One of them is Mr. Ryszard Sobiesiak, an influential businessman and casino owner who is one of the main suspects in the gambling scandal. RZECZPOSPOLITA writes that the enquiry has been run by the Organised Crime Prosecution Office in Krakow since October 2009, precisely when the Blackjack Scandal surfaced. Prosecutors are refraining from giving any comment, but it has been confirmed that members of the Blackjack Commission have been informed of the findings, which may be crucial to the whole affair, reports RZECZPOSPOLITA.
Poles account for the cheapest workforce in Europe, headlines DZIENNIK – GAZETA PRAWNA. Only five other countries in the European Union come lower than Poland in new data issued by Eurostat, the official number-crunchers of the 27-nation bloc. Whereas the average Pole earns 1105 euro a month, at the top of the list are the Luxembourgeois, who take home more than four times that amount with 4900 euro monthly. Economists are not worried by the figures, saying that it means more firms will want to move their business to Poland due to the cheaper workforce. Just because Poland is cheap it does not mean that its workers are of a worse quality, DZIENNIK – GAZETA PRAWNA writes quoting an economics boffin, adding that more and more companies, big or small, are deciding to relocate some of its operations to Poland.
As one of the few countries in Europe, Poland did not buy vaccinations against the swine flu, formally known as A/H1N1. However, the free-of-charge METRO daily informs that the Polish health ministry had back-up plan all along and was in talks with Swedish producers of the vaccine. The daily cites an e-mail written by a civil servant in the Ministry’s Department of Pharmaceutical Policy dated 18 November 2009 to the Swedish health minister. METRO reports that Warsaw wanted to keep the matter under wraps, with a deputy minister saying that the ministry keeps its talks with pharmaceutical companies confidential until, and if, a formal decision is announced. Deputy Health Minister Marek Twardowski told the paper that negotiations were under way with the Swedes because they had twice as many vaccines as they had citizens. However, the talks came to an end when the Scandinavian neighbours from across the Baltic were not interested in selling their stock, writes METRO. (jb)