Ailing rail company to blame for accident

The Polish prosecutor's office launched investigations against a train employee on Monday after at least 16 people were killed when two trains collided in southern Poland on Saturday. The accident was due to structural problems in the Polish railway company PKP, the conservative news portal Wprost Online writes: "A chaotic organisation, a drastic neglect of investments and lack of supervision. These are just a few of the worst problems that contributed to causing Saturday's catastrophe. Nevertheless the biggest problem is that the PKP is splintered into many sub-companies. These continue to be publicly-run, but are in the hands of the local authorities and compete among themselves. At the same time they're obliged to make profits. The result is that one company is responsible for the tracks and another for transport, while a third company looks after the stations. The managing boards of these companies are assessed on the basis of their balance sheets rather than by the quality of services and safety they provide."

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