BUDAPEST: The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) has now been degraded into an instrument for channelling public funds to businesses close to ruling Fidesz, through “dubious” advertisement contracts, the Socialist head of parliament’s budget committee said here the other day.
Referring to documents containing details of the central bank’s media contracts, Sándor Burány said that those agreements constitute a “qualified case of corruption”. He said that the bank’s programmes were tailored “to the financial requirements of family members and friends’ companies”, and insisted that the larger part of the total 6 billion forints had landed with companies associated with Fidesz.
Burany has recently been granted access to the documents, in wake of a court ruling, after the central bank rejected his request for information in 2014. As an example, Burány mentioned that according to the documents the central bank had paid for over 20,000 giant posters promoting the bank’s credit for growth programme. “This immense number means that each Hungarian must have come across those posters,” he said and added that “it was far from the truth”.
