Katowice steel mill accuses PKP of criminal activity

Silesian-based Huta Katowice steel mill (HK) has claimed to the State Security Office (UOP) that PKP, the national railway carrier, committed a crime by selling around zl.65 million of the steel mill's debt to other companies, according to sources of Puls Biznesu. The debts were bought by H. Cegielski, a Poznan-based builder of machines and equipment for the ship building industry, and to Inkasso Reform (IR), a company dealing in debt turnover. Katowice Steel Mill and IR are to sign today an agreement on restructuring liabilities worth zl.55 million. In view of new regulations, in force since October 22 of this year, the law allows PKP to sell the steel mill's debts only with the permission of the Infrastructure Minister. Representatives of the steel mill industry were reluctant to comment on PKP's activities, but they emphasized that, in view of the binding document, PKP should have withheld from selling the debts. In an interview with Puls Biznesu, PKP spokesman Roman Hajdrowski said that HK had not presented any proposal for clearing their debts to PKP which enabled the latter to clear their own liabilities. He went on to say that, since the deal went through the day before the new legislation, PKP had obeyed the law and that in the future they would ask for permission from the proper authorities. (Puls Biznesu, p. 4) P.W.