Considerable time was devoted at today’s session of the City Council to the controversy surrounding the distribution of money for sport and the notification submitted to the prosecutor’s office in this matter.
President Piotr Roman comments on the matter as follows:
(...) Since yesterday, we have had information that a notification was submitted to the prosecutor’s office by people dissatisfied with the distribution of funds for sport. It refers to Article 231 of the Criminal Code, suspicion of the commission of an offence. Article 231 concerns abuse of powers by a public official. The people named are myself personally and the members of the commission.
The members of the commission were President Rzepnicki, department head Beata Sulska, Krzysztof Jakubczyc and Agnieszka Zienkiewicz. Article 231 states that a public official who, by exceeding their powers or failing to perform their duties, acts to the detriment of the public or private interest is subject to up to three years’ imprisonment. If the perpetrator commits the act specified in paragraph 1 in order to obtain a financial or personal benefit, and such comments have also appeared somewhere on the internet, they are subject to imprisonment from one to ten years; if the perpetrator of the act specified in paragraph 1 acts unintentionally, they are subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to two years. And this provision does not apply if the act fulfils the elements of a prohibited act.
Later in his speech, President Roman stressed that trusted and highly experienced people had been appointed to the commission responsible for distributing the funds.
(...) We are dealing with a situation in which, as every year, a specific procedure was carried out—a procedure that is compliant, or at least seems to us to be compliant, with the law. At a certain point, the president first announced and encouraged people to work on the commission. Later, I decided to appoint the commission. The commission was appointed from among people with very extensive experience, whom I trust.
The president also said that competitions are such that when there is a competition, there is also a decision.
As a result of the competition, someone receives financial support and someone does not.
He also mentioned the hate and insults directed at him and other people:
(...) Apart from the various insults directed at me and the members of the commission, the strangest thing was also the moment when a photo of Deputy Mayor Szewczyk was posted with a “stop” caption, and this is very hurtful. No one has apologised to her so far. Deputy Mayor Szewczyk did not participate this year in the distribution of funds for sports clubs, so I do not understand why the photo was deliberately selected in that particular way.
During Wednesday’s session, commission member Beata Sulska, who has supervised the competition for many years, also spoke:
My task is to prepare the competition announcement. In accordance with the provisions of the Public Benefit and Volunteer Work Act, all the substantive requirements set out in chapter nine of this announcement are requirements expressly described in the Act. All requirements concerning the commission’s work, that is, appointing members to work on this commission, are also established in this Act. The Act provides that representatives of the authority are members, but representatives of public-benefit organisations may also be members if they are put forward by organisations, excluding those taking part in the competition itself. On 9 October 2024, the mayor invited representatives of public-benefit organisations to nominate candidates for the database of candidates for commission members. Ladies and gentlemen, no such candidacy was submitted.
Deputy Mayor Robert Rzepnick also spoke about the commission’s work and the assessment of applications:
(...) We, as a city, are to provide funding to sports clubs. There is no obligation to provide funding. These are two different matters, and that is what our work and the commission’s work involve. The decisions were made collectively, after analysing each of the 51 applications that we read and focused on. All the criteria described in the Act were met. Everything was described on a special form attached to each application: substantive requirements and an assessment of the possibility of carrying out the task. It is all laid out. The cost calculation, to which we paid a great deal of attention—whether it had been prepared reliably and truthfully. Previous cooperation, the applicant’s own contribution, which varies, and the assessment of the proposed quality of task performance and the qualifications of the people for it. We paid attention to the fact that, despite the knowledge we have from people who speak with us, things are not always as the application says. We have to focus on the content of the application. If an application is well written, it receives points. If it is poorly written—sometimes it consists of a few strange sentences—there will be fewer points, and that is what the work and assessment of applications involve.