Government figure claims billions vanished through secret resolutions
According to Minister Ruff Bálint, in the previous government cycle thousands of billions of forints in public funds were directed to private purposes through secret government resolutions, and mass criminal complaints are expected shortly.
Government figure claims billions vanished through secret resolutions
Ruff Bálint, who recently worked as a political analyst, now heads the Prime Minister's Office. In his first statement, he levelled serious accusations against the governing practices of the past sixteen years. According to him, vast sums ended up in private hands, with classified government decisions providing the cover for this.
In an interview with 444.hu, the minister divided the Orbán government's rule into two periods. In the first half, between 2010 and 2016, signs of misconduct already emerged. Such was the case with the central bank foundations affair, where according to state oversight more than a hundred billion forints disappeared from the budget.
In the second phase, after 2016, according to him the authorities had no other purpose than promoting the enrichment of certain circles. Ruff described a specific scenario: the state sold an important company, which the buyer purchased with a state bank loan. After that, the same private individual or company began selling services to the state. According to the minister, 4iG acquired strategic companies in two such cases, and roughly twenty similar transactions took place in total.
With regard to concession agreements on motorway operation, he also mentioned a huge sum: over the past four years, more than a thousand billion forints were transferred from the state budget to funds belonging to Lőrinc Mészáros and László Szíjj.
Ruff gained access to classified government resolutions, which the press previously referred to as "three-thousand-ers". According to him, most of these decisions concerned not national security matters, but rather how to place certain companies in a position where they would not have to account for the sums spent on them. He estimates the total scale at several thousand billion forints.
The minister announced that once the investigations he has ordered are concluded, criminal complaints will be filed in sequence. According to him, it is likely that responsibility will emerge for numerous former government officials. He did not mention specific names – such as Antal Rogán, János Lázár or Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky – directly as future defendants, but indicated that decisions will be made on the basis of the results of the investigations. When asked whether there will also be proceedings against the former prime minister, he replied: "That is not my business."
He also spoke of tensions within the Tisza faction. Ruff acknowledged that within the 141-member faction there are varying degrees of radicalism present, which according to him is understandable, given that the representatives witnessed the worst aspects of the previous system during the two-year campaign.
Source: 444