Opposition politicians and the media supporting them rushed just after Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński asked the first referendum question, not only to show that it is pointless, but also to question the management of the referendum, including about this issue. The question is “do you support the sale of state-owned enterprises?”, and the opposition of the majority of Poles on this issue, with a turnout of more than 50%, will even oblige any government in the future to respect this decision. The point is that no one in Poland should ever sell state assets in the way the PO-PSL government did in 2008-2015, derisively called “free and in installments” in the Sejm lobby.
Let us remind you that in the years 2008-2015, the PO-PSL government sold shares in as many as 950 state-owned companies (out of about 1,350 all operating in Poland), raising just over PLN 58 billion. Unfortunately, it was often a chaotic sale, even meeting the current needs of the state budget, there was a shortage of money, the Minister of Finance issued an instruction to the Minister of Finance, who ordered the preparation of a book of demands for ten percent of the shares in PZU, PKO.BP or KGHM or any other company belonging to our “family silver”. After a few days, the shares were already sold, several billion zlotys flowed to the budget, liquidity improved and waiting for the next crisis situation, after which such operations were repeated. This income from the sale of nearly 1,000 companies under the PO-PSL government appears “at least modest” when compared to the financial result of only one state-owned company, namely ORLEN SA, which achieved almost PLN 71 billion in net profit in 2016-2022 (and so after transferring several billion zlotys of income tax to the budget)
In order not to be unfounded, in 2010 exactly 10% of KGHM shares were sold in this way, obtaining only PLN 2 billion (a year later these shares were already worth PLN 4 billion), because the value of this business grew rapidly along with the increase in copper mining and silver production, as well as the prices of these raw materials in the world market. In turn, similarly in 2011 10% of PZU shares were sold for the current needs of the budget, obtaining only PLN 3 billion, in this case the finance minister was in such a hurry to buy the shares he got to sell a few weeks before the decision to pay dividends lose the shares. In this way, PLN 220 million in this regard has already gone to their buyer, and not to the state budget. As much as 19% of PKO BP shares were sold in two attempts, first in 2012 about PLN 3 billion was obtained for 7% of the bank’s shares, and in 2013 about PLN 5 billion was obtained for almost 12%, also for current budget needs.
This method of selling assets ended when the previous coalition left most of the Treasury’s strategic holdings with its stock at an all-minimum level, allowing it to maintain a majority at the General Meeting of Shareholders. The consequences of such policies included attempts to salvage the Treasury’s privileged position in the company by selling the so-called golden share (which is disputed by the European Commission), or by merging it with another state-owned company, merely to increase the shareholding of the state and not be hostilely taken over. This was the case, for example, with Azoty in Tarnów, when they had to merge with Azoty in Puławy, because they threatened a hostile takeover by the Russian oligarch Moshe Kantor, who still owned almost 20% of the shares in the merged entity (now due to EU sanctions have frozen these shares).
It was only the Law and Justice government that finally put an end to this foolish sale of everything state property, to such an extent that the budgets for years to come do not provide any privatization revenue at all. In addition, the Law and Justice government decided to buy back the previously sold assets, probably the most spectacular operation in this regard was to regain the majority stake in Pekao SA bank from their current Italian owner. The Treasury also bought back several other banks from foreign investors and due to this, its share of the entire sector’s assets is 47.8% at the beginning of 2023, which plays an extremely important role in the situation of the effects of the Covid crisis, and now the consequences of the Russian aggression against Ukraine (at the end of 2015, the share of the state treasury in the assets of the entire sector was only about 20%). The government is also strengthening existing strategic state-owned enterprises, as was the case with LOT SA, which was on the verge of bankruptcy during the PO-PSL government and Prime Minister Tusk publicly said he would not survive just because it became the national carrier. Recently, entities from the defense sector, including Huta Stalowa Wola or the Jelcz plant, have provided financial reinforcement amounting to billions of zlotys to increase the production capacity of these plants.
So the United Right government not only refrained from selling state assets, but actually collected dividends from state-owned companies, leaving those funds in companies to be spent on investment. In addition, it buys back previously sold companies, especially those of a strategic nature, the most spectacular example of which was the decisions related to the banking sector, which allowed the treasury to approach almost 50% of its total assets.
Source: wPolityce