THE POLISH Ministry of Transport confirmed on May 1 that Polish State Railways will be restructured on July 1, with the naming of Directors to head three new business units. Tadeusz Augustowski will be Director of Rail Infrastructure, with Jósef Szczepanski at Freight Operations and Marek Pawicki at Passenger. They will be based in Warszawa, although the Motive Power & Workshops unit, formed on July 1 1997 under Jerzy Smialkowski, will remain in Kraków.

Head of the ministry’s Railway Department Krzysztof Celinski says the move will allow open access operators to negotiate access rights from the infrastructure business unit. He anticipates that focusing management control will improve the efficiency of the operation and reduce the need for subsidies.

Although no proposals have been made to privatise PKP, Celinski envisages that the new businesses could form the basis of separate companies to be transferred to the private sector in 2000 or 2001. o

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