The Justice Ministry announced on Wednesday, May 8, that prosecutors have started an investigation into "incompetent management and corrupt practices" at 14 state-controlled firms, the local media reported. The list of the companies under investigation includes KGHM Polska Miedz (metals giant), Poczta Polska (post office), Totalizator Sportowy (state lottery), and PZU (state insurer).

"In recent years, these companies became a place where incompetence, abuses, and private interests made themselves at home on a scale that is altogether difficult to imagine," Premier Leszek Miller said in a televised address to the nation later the same day. "You voted against such a manner of holding power and against the closing of eyes to mismanagement in the September elections to the Sejm and Senate last year," Miller added, referring to the previous, Solidarity-led government.

(NewsBase 10.v.02)