Zloty millionaires lie low in Poland

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 38

Zloty millionaires lie low in Poland

By

CHRISTOPHER BOBINSKI

in Warsaw Poland’s military ruler, General Jaruzelski, pondered aloud at the recent Communist Party congress about tightening the laws against “economic speculation” and restricting private enterprise. The result is that the but enduring, group of really wealthy people in the country feel that they will have to go a little deeper underground. According to General Jaruzelski, the present situation is leading to the “creation of a closed circle where the rich produce goods and services for the rich.”

Last year official proceedings were instituted against 472 illegal “millionaires” — that is millionaires in zlotys. (At the official exchange rage, 87 zlotys equals SUSI.) The police confiscated from them 253 cars and jewellery worth more than $lO million.

Of these, 43 per cent were the owners of private businesses, 37 per cent worked for the State and, of the remainder, 8 per cent ranked as “unemployed,” meaning that they were black-market dealers.

However, many other wealthy people remain. A senior tax inspector estimates that 2 per cent of the adult population, between 300,000 and 500,000 people, are worth more than 10 million zlotys ($115,000). For them life can be good. They take expensive trips abroad, organised by official agencies. For example, a visit to Thailand costs $4600 for 10 days, but the average monthly wage in Poland is only $172. They frequent a fashionable Warsaw casino for illegal poker, with a $l5O entrance fee. The well-off used to be called “banana people” because they could afford hard currency to buy fruit for their children. Now the term for a zloty millionaire is “top shelf.”

A “top shelf’ woman drives a Renault 5, wears a mink coat, and keeps up with the latest fashions in clothes, scent, and make-up. Her man drives a Mercedes 300 diesel, smokes Western cigarettes, and buys his drink in a hard-currency store. The children congregate at the Riviery Remont student club in Warsaw. The highest social prestige belongs to owners of boutiques and car service stations. A little lower down the scale come such trades as imitation jewellery, icecream, and hothouse vegetables. Spending by the zloty millionaires is rarely conspicuous. One man is doing wonders for his house, raising the ceilings and deepening the basement for a sauna. He is leaving the outside looking as shabby as ever, to avoid any envious neighbour penning a note to the taxman. — Copyright, London Observer Service.