Pile of problems for new minister
Aldona Kamela Sowińska, the new treasury minister has inherited a pile of trouble from the highly controversial reign of Andrzej Chronowski including unresolved problems and promises waiting to be fulfilled.
No treasury minister can expect to be fondly remembered when he goes. No society has enough money to go around for everyone so there are always many who can only say good riddance.
Andrzej Chronowski was however unduly controversial. In some ways he tried to follow the policies of his predecessor Emil Wąsacz and speed up the privatisation of the steel and energy sectors. Chronowski treated both of them as priorities and high up in his agenda also featured the alchol and military industries as well as the small and medium sized companies and the sugar refining business. However the differences of opinion between the treasury and economy ministry were not resolved, the sell off of the Polmos companies is stuck in the place it was at when he came to office, the military sector has not moved and no progress has been made with the pharmaceutical sector. Perhaps five months was too little. What he will be remembered for is the crisis he caused with the investor in insurer PZU, management companies of the national investment funds and that between his government partners in the arguments over lottery organiser Totalizator Sportowy. And then he could find no common ground with the interior ministry in the sale of the sixteen sugar refineries belonging to the Silesian Sugar Concern.
Kamela Sowińska has been left a difficult situation. There is a mess on his desk and she is going to have to clean it up. To make it more complicated more people have gone out the door with him. Jakub Tropiło who was responsible for the privatisation of the energy and sugar industries decided his number was up. To add more fat to the fire the treasury is not going to be happy at having to re-jig its sums, France Telecom is not going to take any more TPSA shares this year as the market price is now around forty percent less than what it is contractually obliged to pay which means that the funds it was going to pay are not going into the piggy bank now. Not good news for a government that will not be in power much longer and needs the cash to show how nice and clever it is before the elections.