Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai asked the economy minister on Friday afternoon to take immediate measures to see that an impact study of a planned motorcycle racetrack near Lake Balaton is made public as soon as possible.
The request followed a report on Thursday that finance ministry experts said in an internal document that state support for the planned construction of the MotoGP racetrack was too risky, uneconomical and unlawful.
In the document obtained by index.hu, experts said they did not see any assurance a state loan for the project would be repaid. The operation of the track would require sizable budget support that was not part of budget plans for the mid-term, thus the spending could only cause the deficit to grow, they added.
The government decided in the autumn on HUF 20bn in state subsidies and a state guarantee for a loan of at most HUF 15.3bn from the state-owned Hungarian Development Bank (MFB) for Savoly Motorcentrum Fejleszto, which is building the HUF 40bn racetrack, called Balatonring, but Finance Minister Peter Oszko has still not signed the contract. Probably because of the assessment of the ministry’s experts, index.hu said.
At a press conference on Friday, Bence Janos Kovacs, who heads the investment group building Balatonring, said that a company involved in motor sport as well as local property developers were behind the attacks on the project in the press. He alleged the company involved in motor sport had attempted to extort HUF 30m from him, first for themselves, then for a political party working hard to get into Parliament this election. The party’s homepage states their opposition to the investment, he added.
On Wednesday, three civil organisations, among them Transparency International Magyarorszag, asked Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai in an open letter to suspend payment of the subsidies for the project. Judging from the available data, it appears that the size of the state support and the loan is disproportionate to the revenue to be generated, the organisations said.
A consortium led by Spain’s Sedesa and Grupo Milton laid the cornerstone of Balatonring in November 2008 and was to have completed the track in time for a race in the autumn of 2009.