Eighth-district council provides documents to investigators in corruption-suspected catering case
The leadership of Budapest's eighth district handed over minutes from a closed council meeting to police, which relate to a suspicious public procurement process.
Eighth-district council provides documents to investigators in corruption-suspected catering case
The Budapest eighth-district council forwarded minutes from a closed council session to the Budapest Police Department's department investigating economic and corruption crimes on Wednesday – reported by Telex.
The investigators received the documents in the morning. According to Mayor András Pikó, the document relates to a matter in which the two major parties, the governing party and the socialists, joined forces and allegedly overpaid for catering contracts.
The district leader claims that in the period before 2019, catering charges were so high that the current council cannot reach the previous prices even despite price increases over recent years. Moreover, the mayor stated that in the old contract, perhaps only the articles were ethically sound.
The minutes handed over to investigators were prepared from a secret committee meeting where socialist and governing-party representatives jointly attempted to prevent the district from providing catering within lawful framework. The document was forwarded to the authorities within a short time; no other documents have been requested so far.
According to Pikó, the two political forces as recently as February of last year jointly tried to exclude two of the three winners of a properly conducted public procurement process. When this did not succeed, their aim was for the council to miss the deadline, and to claim during the election campaign that kindergarten and schoolchildren would not receive food.
Source: Telex