The former management of the Port of Szczecin and Świnoujście denies allegations of mismanagement and errors

In a statement issued on Friday, the former management of the Ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście refutes the allegations of mismanagement and errors in the project of the deep-water container terminal and accuses the current port authorities of “discouraging” the private investor with whom the Port of Silesia and Silesia was supposed to build the terminal.

On Monday, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Arkadiusz Marchewka and the current president of the port, Jarosław Siergiej, assessed that the GTK project presented in 2023 was irrational and unprofitable, contained errors, and the construction costs would be recovered after 158 years. They also informed that the preliminary agreement between the Port Authority and the Port of Silesia with the Belgian company DEME CONCESSIONS NV and QTERMINALS WLL from Qatar for a 30-year lease of the port area, construction and operation of the terminal “does not make sense.”

The former management defends itself

Krzysztof Urbaś, president of the ZMPSiŚ from 2019 to January 2024, and two members of the then management board, Daniel Stachiewicz and Jacek Cichocki, in their Friday statement regarding the construction of a deep-water container terminal in the sea port of Świnoujście, considered it an attempt to “groundlessly undermine the credibility of the other party to the contract in order to justify to the public opinion the abandonment of the project.”

According to the announcement of Deputy Minister Marchewka the external port in Świnoujście, called “Cape Pomerania”, will be built by 2029 by state entities and it will be larger (186 ha) than planned during the rule of Law and Justice. The costs of sea and land infrastructure are estimated at PLN 10 billion. A new approach track will be built, 70 km long and 17 m deep, almost 3 km of quays, new railway, road, energy infrastructure, etc. GTK, with over 1,300 m of quays, will be able to accommodate two 400-meter container ships and one smaller unit, the so-called feeder.

According to the previous management board, the current ZMPSiŚ has been making decisions over the last year and a half actions “aimed at discouraging the private investor” and therefore the promised lease agreement was not concluded (the deadline expired on October 31 this year).

“The ministry's report is based on over-interpretation”

Former members of the port management noted that they received it “with sadness, but not surprise” and emphasized that cooperation with private entities, including the Qatari company, increased the chances of obtaining new cargoes that had not been handled in the Baltic Sea ports before. Urbaś also opposed “attempts to discredit” people involved in the preparation of the container terminal project, e.g. by “informing in the media about alleged errors, which the authors of these reports intended would have convince public opinion about the existence of invented irregularities in the implementation of this project or about our “mismanagement” – he wrote in a statement. According to him, the message presented by Marchewka and Sergei “was based on an over-interpretation of information taken out of context.”

Referring to the allegation that the depth of the water areas of the new port in Świnoujście planned for 2023 was 14.5 m, Urbaś explained that this was a depth “accepted only in the first period of operation” of GTK, which was to be built by 2028. However, the construction of the approach track will take several years longer. He emphasized that all the designed structures (breakwater, quays, etc.) were to be constructed in a way that would allow for deepening the water bodies to 17 m.

As explained in the statement, ZMPSiŚ did not analyze the profitability of GTK because the terminal project was to be implemented by a private investor. The previous Port management also referred to the words of Deputy Minister Marchewka that if the GTK was implemented according to the 2023 concept, the reimbursement of expenses would take place after 158 years. Urbaś and colleagues assessed this thesis as “erroneous”. As they emphasized, the expenditure of the State Treasury and the revenues of the Municipal Sports and Recreation Authority should not be compared.

They recalled that the port generates revenues primarily to the state budget from customs duties and taxes; and they are many times higher than the fees charged by the ZMPSiŚ, e.g. from terminal operators. The authors of the statement also emphasized that the construction of the approach track or breakwater is not a commercial investment.

According to government plans, Świnoujście is to handle 2 million TEUs annually (equivalent to a 20-foot container). In 2024, 3.3 million TEU passed through all Polish ports. (PAP)

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