The treasury cannot claim that no-one is taking any notice of it in the sphere of state owned or partially state owned companies. It would take a lot of bravery to do so considering the amount of people employed during the term of office of the past government who now have free time to enjoy with their families. Krzysztof Kaczorowski, MD of Włocławek based Anwil is one such man. His company is 74 percent owned by PKN Orlen in which the state still has a dominant role. Until recently he was dead against treasury plans to link PVC production at his plant to that of the Tarnow heavy chemicals plant. After a meeting with the treasury on 15 March he clearly decided that he did not need more time to spend with his family and is now fully behind the government programme to restructure the production base in the heavy chemicals industry.
Indeed the whole management of the plant is behind the treasury every step of the way.
The board of the company recently changed and new representatives of PKN Orlen and the treasury have been called to duty. Totally surprisingly, and this is probably nothing other than an amazing coincidence, these new representatives in the main are sympathetic to the government that won the elections last year.
Up until now Anwil had managed largely to stay clear of political in fighting but now it is being asked to do its bit to save the 3,600 jobs at the Tarnow plant which unfortunately finds itself in an area with little other industry. Its installations are so out of date to be museum pieces and potential investors have shown little interest in the past ten years or so. Earlier this year the managing director of Anwil said that competition in the sphere of
PVC production from Tarnów was nothing to worry about given the outdated equipment which cannot be modernised for clear economic reasons as well as the general unprofitability of the plant.
Kaczorowski said that the production at the plant should be around 300,000 tons per year and not 70,000 tons as present.
Clearly the government ignored the economic arguments and told Kazimierz Kaczorowski that if he will not do it then they will find somebody who can. Integrity is clearly the better part of valour.
The link up with Tarnowís PVC facilities will not please the workforce at Anwil. The extra cost burden will hit cash flow hard. Last year Tarnow reported a loss of PLN180m on sales of PLN700m. Word has it that Anwil reported a profit of PLN20m. On the basis of this information the governmentís sums do not seem to add up.
Anwil employs 4,000 people in Włocławek, an area of very high unemployment. This political interference could mean that a lot more people could have more time to spend with their families with little chance of finding alternative employment elsewhere.