Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has reacted to Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s accusations that not having purchased new government planes is a “criminal policy.”

Kaczynski stated, in the conservative daily Gazeta Polska, that the plane crash was “a result of [the government’s] ‘criminal’ policy because you did not buy new planes.”

In response, Sikorski, making a statement while on a state visit in Armenia, recalled that, as the head of the Ministry of Defense, he opened a tender for 6 new government planes on 19 December 2006. The tender was meant to close at the end of April 2007, resulting in a purchase of new VIP planes. Sikorski resigned from office in February 2007 and was replaced by the late Aleksander Szczyglo.

Szczyglo meanwhile, a close colleague of late President Kaczynski, both of whom perished in the 10 April tragedy near Smolensk, halted the tender, but opened a new one on 25 September 2007. The tender called for the leasing of or purchase of new planes. The pursuit of either option has been stalled by Civic Platform Defense Minister Bogdan Klich, posted in 2007 after parliamentary elections put Civic Platform in power, who found the proposals too expensive for an economic crisis-pinched budget.  

Following the tragic April 10 crash of the Tupolev plane, the issue of Poland’s government VIP planes has become a heated one and the Tupolev's have been retired. Currently, VIPs fly two chartered Embraers or Jak-40s. The Minsitry of Defense has, however, pledged to renew the tender to purchase new planes. (mmj)

Source: Gazeta Wyborcza