WARSAW, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Marek Kuchcinski, the marshall of the Polish Sejm (the lower house of parliament), is accused of having repeatedly used governmental planes to transport his family.
The main opposition party, Civic Platform, has called for Kuchcinski's resignation. The issue will be debated on Friday by the Polish parliament, with some media speculating that Kuchcinski might be asked to resign by his own party, governing Law and Justice (PiS).
Last week, private station Radio Zet reported that Kuchcinski had taken his family along on six flighs using governmental planes and enjoying services of State Protection Service officers.
Initially, the Information Center of the Sejm replied by saying all the trips had an official purpose and that the presence of family members did not increase costs to the taxpayer.
On Thursday, Kuchcinski himself declared that, since taking up office four years ago, he took his family along on 23 flights. He said on one of the flights his wife was even travelling alone.
Kuchcinski initially offered to donate the estimated cost of his family members' trips (around 3,900 U.S. dollars) to charity. On Thursday, he announced an additional donation of around 7,200 U.S. dollars, this time for the modernisation of Polish military forces the estimated cost of the flight his wife undertook alone.
The marshall, however, argued that Polish law did not specify who could fly alongside him on governmental planes. Many of the identified flights were on the route Warsaw to Rzeszow, in Kuchcinski's home region, and took place over the weekend.
Parliamentarians from opposition PO are conducting an investigation, currently analysing hundreds of pages of documentation concerning Kuchcinski's flights. The documents obtained by the parliamentarians, however, concern only the period since March 2018 to spring 2019 and the flight information usually does not include full passenger lists.
Opposition leaders are calling for an official investigation into the case to check whether Kuchcinski took his family along on more occasions and whether the costs were higher than the amounts the marshall committed so far to charity.
Online portal onet.pl calculated that, only between spring of 2018 and spring of 2019, the approximately 100 flights undertaken by Kuchcinski costed the taxpayer an estimated one million U.S. dollars.
"I would like to apologise to all those who feel offended. At the same time, I would like to clearly state that I was acting according to the law," Kuchcinski said in a public statement.
