Hungary's Integrity Authority believes that the activities of officials from former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government should be investigated due to the "disappearance of billions of euros" in European Union funds. This was stated by the head of the Authority, Ferenc Bíró, in a comment to Politico, reports UNN.
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Bíró stated that "politicians could likely be held criminally liable" for their involvement in a possible scheme of "systematic deception" of European taxpayers during Orbán's 16-year rule.
"My team has identified a number of criminal cases where, in my personal opinion, we as a country should be able to recover these funds and repatriate them, as most of them have already left the country,"
However, Bíró did not bring specific charges against Orbán or other members of his inner circle.
According to the watchdog, three companies received the majority of government contracts for the supply of goods and services, with the amounts charged for these contracts being artificially inflated.
Bíró said the government spent about 10 billion euros on these three firms over the past four years. He did not name the companies involved.
"The overpricing, which we consider prone to corruption risk… would amount to 3.5 billion euros,"
Bíró emphasized that public procurement tenders were "manipulated," and prices for basic goods were charged several times higher than the market price.
He also shared that under the previous government, he faced "politically motivated attacks" and was targeted by bribery attempts while trying to investigate the public procurement scheme.
Commenting on these statements, a spokesperson for the European Commission emphasized that there is "zero tolerance for fraud against the EU budget."
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