Csaba Balázs Rigó: the GVH imposed fines of more than four billion forints this year

In response to the newspaper’s suggestion that the cartel uncovered in the public procurement procedure for railway developments around Debrecen and the 1.2 billion forint fine imposed for it stood out among the penalties, Csaba Balázs Rigó said:

the organization works for the purity of competition and the protection of Hungarian consumers, politics is left to those whose job it is to deal with that.

The interviewer pointed out that left-wing publications have reported that the GVH began investigating the cartel suspicion when the owner of the Homlok group of companies, who was later punished, broke up with the daughter of Lőrinc Mészáros, which is an indication that the competition authority “struck down” not only on political, but also on family grounds.

The president stated that the GVH always judges cases based on the law and evidence.

“The suggestion itself is nonsense,” he stressed.

He also stated that the railway public procurement cartel had been uncovered with complete certainty, and that they were also helped in this by the fact that one of the participating companies admitted the violation after the initiation of the competition supervision procedure and provided evidence to the GVH. In addition, the cartel members made mistakes in the public procurement procedure that essentially brought them down.

The competition supervision procedure was initiated with an on-site search authorized by the Metropolitan Court without prior notice, he added, and that this was followed by a wide-ranging investigation of the facts, and several hearings were held.

“Such a clear violation of law is rare,” he said.

According to the interview, the GVH found that

the number of single-bid procedures in Hungary has decreased significantly in recent years.

The president of the organization said that the number of single-bid public procurements could be further reduced, and proposals were formulated to this end.

“In fact, Hungary has undertaken to reduce such procedures with general and specific measures in order to access frozen EU funds. In order to obtain the funds that our country is entitled to by law, we will begin to analyze additional topics next year,”

– indicated Csaba Balázs Rigó.

He continued,

at the same time, we can state that the measures undertaken by the government towards the European Commission are effective, so if we approach the issue of EU funds purely on a professional basis, then there can be no doubt that the funds must arrive in the Hungarian budget.

It was stated in the interview that the online Price Watch will also be available to Hungarians in 2025; the system contributed to the success in breaking down and keeping food inflation under control;

the Hungarian population was able to save around twenty billion forints in just three months due to the price-cutting effect of the Price Watch.

“So the system is good for Hungarian people, especially families,” he said, adding that the number of users has also increased in recent weeks, during the pre-Christmas shopping period.