Polish Overseas Minister Zbigniew Rau has insisted he is not going to step down regardless of a rising scandal over allegations that the nation’s consulates issued visas to migrants from Africa and Asia in trade for bribes.
The controversy first emerged in late August when Deputy Overseas Minister Piotr Wawrzyk, who was accountable for consular and visa issues, was fired by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for a “lack of passable cooperation.” Poland’s Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) subsequently launched an investigation into Wawrzyk’s actions.
The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper later reported that the probe had uncovered corruption that allowed tens of 1000’s of immigrants to enter the EU by worldwide recruitment corporations. In the meantime, the Rzeczpospolita media outlet reported that the Overseas Ministry system had allowed individuals to “skip the queue” to acquire Polish visas for $4,000-5,000.
A parliamentary probe by the opposition Civic Coalition alliance steered that as many as 350,000 visas issued to migrants from African and Center Jap nations might be beneath suspicion.
Trying to regulate the fallout, Rau insisted on Monday that he doesn’t really feel “complicit” and even steered that the scandal “doesn’t exist.” The minister admitted to “irregularities” within the issuance of visas, however acknowledged that solely round 200 paperwork had been concerned. He additional insisted that the determine pales compared with the two million visas issued by Poland within the final 30 months, largely to Ukrainians and Belarusians.
“If that is the scandal of the century, I favor to speak a couple of cascade of faux information,” Rau added, responding to claims by opposition chief Donald Tusk that the allegations had been “the largest scandal of the twenty first century in Poland.”
The controversy erupted one month forward of parliamentary elections in Poland, the place the federal government has positioned itself as powerful on migration. Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki, additionally a member of the opposition, joined Tusk in denouncing what he described as “corruption on the highest ranges of presidency.”
Final week, Polish prosecutors introduced that they’d detained seven suspects within the case, none of whom had been state officers. In response to Rzeczpospolita, a key determine was named as ‘Edgar Okay’, an Indian businessman and affiliate of Wawrzyk, who allegedly acted as an middleman within the scheme.
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