The cabinet will submit to Parliament a series of anti-corruption measures that would enter into force on January 1, 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai announced on Sunday. Bajnai said “it has to be clear to all that anyone who steals state funds is violating the common interest”.
The aims of the package, approved by the cabinet last Wednesday, are deterring corruption and ensuring that people have an interest in eliminating such cases. Whistleblowers will be given legal assistance, special protection and financial incentives. Those who report abuses could be paid up to a 10% fee of the fine imposed.
Bajnai announced that the Public Procurements Council will be transformed into the Public Procurement and Public Interest Protection Office, which will be authorised to fine organisations.
Justice Ministry state secretary Dezsõ Avarkeszi later told reporters that the Office will begin operations from March 1 and could mete out billion of forints worth of fines based on the government’s proposals. The anti-corruption package will contain a parliamentary resolution and two bills about the Office.
“It is lacking in credibility that those announcing an anti-corruption package have proved to be the most corrupt people in Hungary over the last seven to eight years,” deputy Fidesz spokesman András Cser-Palkovics told reporters in Budapest later Sunday.
A recent survey showed that 20% of public procurement funds are lost through corruption in Hungary. The cabinet has had several stabs at curbing corruption but as yet with little success, Magyar Hírlap observes.
The Hungarian state budget loses Ft 300-400 billion a year from corruption, according to the global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International.
This is a joke. For years the external accountants have been writing clear notes outlining the discrepancies in Government related contracts. No actions were ever taken and new contracts suffered the same faults.
What happened to the anti-corruption body set up in 2007, the one with the target to clean up government by 2010? Forgotten? No-one going to ask them were all the money went that they wasted alongside the thievery?
Time for another QUANGO with a new set of targets that no-one really gives a shit about.
Tell you what, keep to your word:
1. Publish all government contracts (national and local) about 2 million forints automatically on the internet
2. Print all external accounting reports automatically
3. Show what actions have been taken on the external accountants/examiners notes
4. How about the constant thefts of every MP through tax and receipt fraud for expense accounts?
Yes, didn’t think so.
Has anyone read Plato’s republic and is familiar with the story of ‘The Ring of Gyges’? For as long as their actions remain hidden those in power will continue to steal and remain corrupt.
“That those who practice it [justice], practice it constrained by want of power to act unjustly, we might better perceive if we do the following in thought : granting each one of them both, the just and the unjust, license to do as he wishes, let us then follow them closely to observe whither his desire (è epithumia) will lead each…” (Republic, II, 359b-360b)
Prime Minister Bajani should be strung up on the first tree with a tall branch.