Poland says 62 former officials face charges over misuse of funds

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has charged more than 60 officials from the former Law and Justice (PiS) government with offences related to misuse of funds, while more than 100 others are under investigation, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.

Tusk's pro-European coalition government, in office since December, has made a priority of holding to account those it accuses of wrongdoing under the previous nationalist administration.

PiS did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment but its politicians have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

"After six months, we have 62 people from the previous ruling elite who have been charged. This has never happened in history before our predecessors," Tusk told reporters, without specifying who the officials were and what charges they faced.

Tusk said the government was conducting further proceedings, with 200 tax inspectors investigating 90 units in 17 ministries, and that the scale of potencial irregularities was estimated by the tax office at up to 100 billion zlotys ($25.23 billion).

"Notifications were (already) submitted to the prosecutor's office about the possibility of crimes having been committed involving more than 3.2 billion zlotys", Tusk added.

Tusk said the irregularities were a part of a "closed system" created by PiS and were based on an assumption that the former ruling party could not lose power.

Former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on X on Friday that the Tusk government's main goal was to "liquidate the biggest opposition party".

"When you are obsessed, you go to a doctor, not form a government," Morawiecki added.

Officials had previously said seven people were charged in an investigation into alleged misuse of funds managed by the justice ministry and that the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) had notified prosecutors that Morawiecki may have acted to the detriment of public interest when granting subsidies to municipalities.

During its eight-year rule, PiS faced accusations from opposition parties, rights groups and the European Union of subverting democratic norms, increasing state control over the judiciary and eroding media freedoms.

($1 = 3.9638 zlotys)

(Reporting by Barbara Erling and Pawel Florkiewicz; writing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Gareth Jones)