Warsaw City Hall officials to be dismissed over reprivatization fault

Warsaw’s mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz has announced that City Hall will dismiss three staff over the reprivatization controversy. "City Hall officials who did not comply with their obligations regarding the transfer of a plot of land on Chmielna street, in the heart of the capital, will be dismissed," Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz told a press conference on Friday morning. According to the mayor, the plot was hastily taken and those three people involved did not consider all of the circumstances of the case. "I came to the conclusion that our staff did not perform the proper due diligence. Therefore, the decision to transfer the plot was hastily taken. And this is why all of those who kept us updated on the case misled us, me included, and will be dismissed," Gronkiewicz-Waltz said. Meanwhile, PiS MP Jarosław Krajewski blamed Warsaw's mayor, claiming that "only Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz carrys full responsibility for reprivatization in Warsaw in the years 2007-2016." An estimated 20,000-24,000 private buildings were taken from their owners in October 1945 without any compensation. Since the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 it has been possible to submit claims for the return of such confiscated property.