Hołownia Slams Hiring of Online Troll in State-Owned Company

Hołownia was responding to one of the following report by Onet, according to which Kopania, who would insult message using the nickname "CasperVanDerHaag," had been appointed as Deputy Director of Marketing at Polski Holding Nieruchomości, a company owned by the State Treasury.

"Hiring internet haters into state institutions and paying them to create hate — is that the kind of competence we expect from state-owned enterprises?" Hołownia asked.

"Venomous Posts Rewarded With a State Job"
The Sejm Speaker also mentioned that even though the phasing out of political favouritism had been previously promised, partisan patronage practices in public institutions were as strong as ever.

Kopania had previously been in charge of a Warsaw municipal company, but the city's mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, fired him after it emerged that he was running the anonymous account, which posted slurs against politicians, the Onet investigation revealed. He attacked Jarosław Kaczyński, whom he called a "pathetic psychopath," for example, Szymon Hołownia, whom he described as an "infantile brat," and Magdalena Biejat, whom he described as "as empty as a drum in Zenek Martyniuk's band."

In the marketing department, according to Hołownia, Kopania's job was no more than a "payment."

"Are these his credentials in marketing? Writing such things online? "What will he be able to bring to a state company?" Hołownia asked.

Request for Personal Responsibility
Hołownia demanded that Deputy Minister Robert Kropiwnicki should explain how an individual like that made it to the higher echelons of a state company.

"I have discussed this with the Prime Minister on numerous occasions already. Minister Kropiwnicki should try to justify himself in person," added Hołownia.

The case has reopened criticism over politicization of state-owned enterprises, and whether public institutions are being used as a place to pay back political favors rather than to be run professionally.