Government trips ‘Unsafe’

27th January 2012

Visits by members of the government and senior figures in the armed forces over the last few years have been poorly organised, unsafe and lacking in security, the Supreme Chamber of Control found this week.

In a report covering the years 2005 to 2010, and including the Smolensk disaster, the chamber found fundamental failings in the planning and execution of foreign trips.

The chamber also concluded that the plane carrying President Lech Kaczynski should not have tried to land at Smolensk airport on April 10, 2010.

Among those criticised in the report are the president’s office, the defence ministry, the Government Protection Agency and the now defunct 36th Special Air Transport Regiment, which was responsible for VIP flights.

“The institutions involved in the preparation and implementation of the visits failed to clearly designate tasks, principles of co-operation and responsibilities,” stated the report, adding that “the state committed errors because in Poland there were no coherent procedures to follow”.

It also said that along with the April 10th flight to Smolensk, a flight taken by Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the same airport three days earlier contravened procedures as the town’s airport was not on official air force registers.

Not mincing its words, the report attributed many of the failings to problems with 36th Special Air Transport Regiment stemming from poor training, equipment and organisation. But the chamber said the defence ministry and various governments should shoulder much of the blame as they both failed to improve the unit.

“Unfortunately neither the defence ministry nor successive government managed to develop a coherent policy for the transport of the country’s most important people,” said the report, explaining they had all failed to address the problems of the 36th.

The Government Protection Agency (BOR), the equivalent of the USA’s Secret Service, was also found wanting in key areas. The chamber found that it had failed to carry out effective risk assessments of locations to be visited by government members, and this had compromised their protection.

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