PKP Cargo has dismissed five out of its seven regional directors. The move follows revelations about a widespread fake job scheme. Reportedly, regional directors awarded favoured employees fake positions and their corresponding salaries, draining the company’s finances.
The Polish rail freight operator has not publicly confirmed that the dismissals relate to the fake job scandal. However, Polish publication Onet reported earlier that a “purge” among the directors may be on the way following the revelations.
Now, it seems that the report is being confirmed. The regional directors of the northern, Lower Silesian, eastern and western plants of PKP Cargo have been replaced. The director of the company’s central plant has also reportedly been dismissed, but PKP Cargo has not appointed a replacement yet.
Negligence and abuses
“The need for broad-based action in our company has never been as important and as necessary as it is now”, the company’s acting president Marcin Wojewódka said in a press release.
“The great negligence and a number of abuses that we have detected and that we are noticing at every turn force us to make radical decisions. However, in order to save our national powerhouse, which is of such great importance in the field of national security in the rail freight industry, we have to make them”, he added.
Fake job scandal
Last week, Onet published allegations of widespread power abuse at PKP Cargo. According to the publication, employees revealed that many people were awarded with fake jobs and the corresponding financial compensation, even if they did not really do the work. In one case, an employee worked only one job, but received compensation for four jobs in various departments of the company.