A "reliable, apolitical police". Poland to create a new anti-graft agency

The Central Bureau for Combating Corruption is to function within police structures, Siemoniak explained. In his view, the CBA was too often involved in fighting corruption on the local level, which could have been successfully combated by the police.

The new anti-corruption unit is to be structured in the image of the Central Investigation Bureau of Police (CBŚP). "This over 20-year-old structure proves, that by operating in isolation from certain local circumstances, it can effectively combat this most serious of crimes. We want the CBZP to be organized like this," Siemoniak said at a conference titled: "How to combat corruption effectively?".

He added that a draft bill liquidating the CBA, currently being prepared by the government, is based on a premise that further fight against corruption is necessary, but the institution itself needs to be replaced due to "poor efficacy".

"We've decided that the fight against corruption can and should be organized differently," he explained.

Siemoniak stressed that in recent years Poland has noted a significant drop in international rankings measuring effectiveness of tackling corruption. "We need to draw conclusions from this situation," he added.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a severe critic of the CBA, reminded at a press conference on Monday he had once decided not to dissolve the bureau. It was back in 2007, when he decided to keep PiS politician Mariusz Kamiński (former interior minister and former special services coordinator - edit.) at the helm of the CBA.

"Many of our voters and my associates kept telling me that the CBA should have been liquidated, because it was a political police controlled by Kaczyński (PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński - edit.)," Tusk said. "I insisted the CBA kept functioning. I told my people who were taking office: I know how they are, but at least you will see it's no joke."

Tusk added he and Kamiński had discussed how the CBA should operate. "He squandered this opportunity. From the very first day in office he focused on persecuting political opponents, not fighting corruption. The eight years of PiS highlighted it even more glaringly," he said.

"The CBA was virtually idle. For eight years, if it prosecuted anyone, they were opposition politicians," the prime minister noted.

He also stressed he would not be satisfied with mere declarations from CBA officers regarding their loyalty to the current administration. "I don't want that. I want a reliable, apolitical police that will fight corruption, but primarily keep a close watch on the government, not the opposition. And that I can guarantee," he added.

"We will restructure this service and equip the police with such capabilites, so that no one has any doubts that the police is not afraid of the authorities."

The CBA said at its official website that it "is a special service, created to combat corruption in public and economic life, particularly in public and local government institutions as well as to fight against activities detrimental to the State’s economic interest".

"The Bureau conducts its activities under the Act of 9 June 2006 on the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau," we read.