Ministry of Agriculture published a list of companies importing Ukrainian method cereals to Poland

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Agriculture and agrarian improvement published on its government pages companies importing method cereals from Ukraine, covering as many as 62 extended pages. The publication of this summary was previously announced since April this year. This list only presents company names, without providing any detailed information, specified as the quantity of grain imported or the dates of imports made.

As part of the announcement carried out on Tuesday, the Ministry of Agriculture and agrarian improvement made available the long-awaited list of companies which introduced cereals from Ukraine to the Polish market, resulting in excessive saturation of the local marketplace and generated losses for national farmers. Ministry message contains link to document in PDF filewhere that list was published. This paper covers as many as 62 pages and contains information about almost 2 1000 companies.

The list provided by the ministry is available under this ADDRESS. The list shall cover only the names of the undertakings, without providing any peculiar information specified as the quantity of cereals imported or the date of import.

The fresh saturation of the Polish marketplace with Ukrainian grain has caused crucial losses for national farmers. The publication of the list of companies that imported grain from Ukraine to Poland was announced in April.

According to the study of the ultimate Chamber of Control (NIK), the decision-makers minimized the grain problem from Ukraine and then acted hastily and inefficiently. The main reason for the crisis was the message of the Minister of Agriculture, Henryk Kowalczyk, who encouraged farmers to keep grain in storage, claiming that at the end of the year its price would increase. According to NIK, this counsel was not supported by any analyses and proved to be unsuccessful.

List published by the Ministry is available under THIS ADDRESS. The list shall contain only the names of the companies, without providing any detailed information specified as the quantity of grain imported or the date.

The fresh influx of Ukrainian grain into the Polish marketplace caused crucial losses for national farmers. The publication of the list of grain importing companies from Ukraine was expected from April.

According to the study of the ultimate Chamber of Control (NIK), decision-makers disregarded the grain problem from Ukraine and later acted inefficiently and sluggishly. The main reason for the crisis was the message by the agriculture minister Henryk Kowalczyk, who recommended farmers to keep their grain in storage, convincing that by the end of the year its price would rise. According to NIK, the council did not support any analyses and proved to be wrong.

It is worth recalling, according to the indictments prepared by the Rzeszow prosecutor's office, that from Ukraine 100 tons of "technical" wheat were sent to Polish mills. The flour from this batch was utilized to bake at least 300 1000 loaves of bread which came to Polish tables. In the course of the investigation, 92 proceedings nationwide concerning the bringing of ‘technical’ grain to Poland were combined into one.

Recall that already in April of this year, then, the Minister of Agriculture, Robert Telus, announced the release of the list.

In early June, Minister Robert Telus declared in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza that the list “is being analysed at the moment”, but “the owner of this list is the National taxation Administration”. "They are kind of liable for this list, not me. This is besides a bit of a legal problem," he said.

Our law firm has so sent to the Ministry of Finance, which supervises the National taxation Administration a request for public information regarding the disclosure of the list of companies importing Ukrainian method cereals.

In his reply, the Ministry of Finance utilized the veil of customs secrecy. "We would like to inform that, in accordance with the provisions of Article 95b of the Customs Law, the individual information contained in the customs declaration and another papers submitted by the declarant is covered by customs secrecy. Violation of customs secrecy shall be subject to criminal sanctions analogous to a breach of fiscal secrecy, which is governed by the taxation Code. As a consequence of this legal restriction, information on the names of the operators importing cereals and detailed import data by circumstantial operators cannot be made available by the National taxation Administration’, as stated in the reply.

In July, Minister Telus argued that "disclosure of this information could be more harmful than beneficial".

In April, media reports suggested that law and justice politicians may have been involved.