Zbigniew Rau’s decision was announced by the foreign ministry in Warsaw on Friday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Polish foreign ministry said in a statement that “due to the ongoing proceedings into irregularities in the granting of visas,” Rau had decided to dismiss the head of the ministry’s legal department, Jakub Osajda, and order an "extraordinary audit and check" of the ministry’s consular department, and of all of Poland's consular missions.
Rau also instructed ministry officials to cancel contracts "with all outside contractors" responsible for receiving visa applications, according to the statement.
The ministry said Poland started outsourcing the issuing of work visas after its previous Civic Platform-led government in 2011 decided to close 31 diplomatic posts.
A lawmaker with the country's ruling conservatives said on Friday that Polish authorities were investigating alleged irregularities in the granting of work visas to foreigners and "swiftly removing" officials suspected of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, the opposition has accused the government of being complicit in a system in which migrants were provided with visas in a fast-track procedure without proper checks after paying intermediaries, the Reuters news agency reported.
Poland’s main opposition leader, Donald Tusk, said on Thursday that the "cash-for-visas scheme" was “probably the biggest scandal in Poland in the 21st century,” the AP news agency reported.
On Thursday, prosecutors and Poland’s deputy minister for security services told reporters that seven people—none of them state officials—had been charged over possible corruption in the process of issuing temporary work visas.
They added that the investigation began in July last year and was ongoing.
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he was awaiting the results of the probe.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, gov.pl, AP, Reuters
