Complete dilettantism, a collapsing city – this was 2022 in Budapest led by Gergely Karácsony
Even in 2022, Gergely Karácsony, the left-wing mayor of Budapest, produced amazing scandals. Now at the end of the year, we have collected the mayor’s most embarrassing cases.
The Karácsonys would have sold the City Hall
One of the biggest scandals of 2022 was the City Hall sale case that came to light at the end of 2021. Anonymus delivered it at the end of 2021 another video to several editorial offices, announced: the Gerge Karácsony would sell the Budapest City Hall. Already in this video also shared audio recordingsin which more and more information and names appeared and
an amazing network of real estate corruption began to take shape, with millions in bribes and billions in profits.
Grébics Zrt. and its CEO, Gyula Gansperger, also appeared as buyers in the case. to whose person the suspicious threads led me again and again.
Following another video, it was revealed that Zsolt Berki’s company, Northern Rock Kft., speaking in one of the audio recordings, may have commissioned a real estate agent. for sale of the patinated building of the Budapest City Hall.
It also turned out that
The Karácsonys wanted to knock down the City Hall for 40 billion forints.
The mayor initially tried to deny it, however, several documents with evidentiary value – for example, a contract with Berki’s company for sale – contract was made publicso Karácsony’s protest became quite discredited.
And Anonymus only supplied the additional information: which shared a photo of Gansperger, mentioned above, together with former Socialist Prime Minister Gyula Bajnai Gordon; it will soon become clear also the details of the business relationship between the two.
Featured in another Anonymus video following a sound recording – in which Gansperger and Bajnai were also involved – the details of the commission system operating at the Budapest City Hall have already been revealed. The central actor of the corruption model was Zsolt Berki, who – as we wrote it at the time – endowed with serious power, he managed the dark real estate transactions of the capital. It turns out that Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss was also an active participant in the operation of the system.
Both sellers and buyers of real estate in the capital working on commission with the transactions of the corruption system they could get a huge profit, for a commission of 10 percent of the total purchase price, personalized tenders were issued for properties worth hundreds of millions or billions. Anonymus has done a lot to reveal that, in addition, these properties acquired under illegal circumstances can be resold at multiple prices.
Christmas is just a puppet
What Anonymus poured out in the secret place, Mayor Gergely Karácsony tried again and again to wash himself and his colleagues, to no avail. Not only did he appear to be completely out of control, but more like he was given a weightless supporting role in a multibillion-dollar, convoluted corruption case;
it became obvious that Gergely Karácsony has no power in his own office, the corruption cases around him just “happen” and the real power is in the hands of the persons appearing in the Anonymus report – among others Zsolt Berki, Gyula Gansperger, Balázs Barts, Gordon Bajnai volt.
Like the mayor, Gordon Bajnai was also forced to explain the matter, but an Anonymus login quickly discredited him: the audio presented by the disguised figure essentially contained the details of a business meeting, none other than Bajnai, Gansperger and a third man were involved. The topic was, of course, the City Hall project…
Anonymous and his information were confirmed that the capital was indeed preparing to sell the City Hall property and move the office. Not only did the audio recording of Bajnai’s explanation prove that it contains untruths, but also of the declarations made by the Karácsonys in the City Hall case.
It is clear to Anonymus1 that the capital also wanted to beat real estate in Buda and Pest with the commission system “introduced” by Gansper and Bajnai. The Origo found outthat the sale of real estate was surrounded by several scandals.
Anonymus was really not speaking out of thin air: the National Bureau of Investigation ordered an investigation in connection with the scandalous transactions of the City Hall, for embezzlement, bribery, fraud and influence peddling.
Regarding the sale of the Town Hall the authorities are still investigating.
He still doesn’t know English
in February 2022 Gergely Karácsony lied again, because everyone around him spoke English, he spoke Hungarian. He claimed to have “talked” with the mayors of Warsaw and Istanbul at the Munich Security Policy Conference. It is true that he was there in person, in the presence of his foreign policy adviser (Dávid Korányi, who has since had to resign due to the rolling dollars), who, according to an official video, interpreted for him throughout a panel discussion.
In other words, Karácsony played the big boy, that he participated in a prestigious international meeting, he just forgot to add that everyone present spoke English around him, while he was speaking Hungarian at an international event. His performance is also embarrassing, because in front of him, all the participants were able to express their thoughts in English, including the mayor of Istbuli and Warsaw, but not him. The embarrassing incident also highlighted that Karácsony lied when he claimed that he was progressing well with his English studies.
Parking scandal
This year also saw the light of day The threads of the Zugló parking scandal go back to 2016. Already in its prime, Gergely Karácsony led the district when, five years ago, the XIV. district decided to introduce paid parking. All of this came to public attention again because at the beginning of the year it was revealed that Zsolt Fuzik, who testified against socialist politicians, is the director of SiS Parking Kft., which is also a member of the C-Ware consortium. These companies played a role in the Zugló parking scandal. Fuzik is one of the suspects of a serious investigation into the invoice factory of SYS IT Services Kft. contracted with the BKV, and who, based on investigative documents obtained by the Hungarian Nation, claimed that between 2017 and 2019, according to his testimony
he gave at least 250 million forints, half of the profit, to Csaba Tóth, a socialist member of parliament, and Csaba Horváth, a politician from the MSZP in the capital.
As it turns out, however, Fuzik also named other socialist politicians, thus Zsolt Molnár, member of parliament, who, according to his claim, handed over HUF 40 million in bribes, as well as that former Minister of Environment Ferencet Baja, who asked him for HUF 30 million from BKV Zrt. in connection with the public procurement for the operation of its IT systems.
The salaries of Gergely Karácsony’s advisers were greatly increased
Gergely Karácsony’s office regularly stated in 2022 that the bleeding capital municipality would not receive any funds, however, the mayor’s advisors received plenty of salary increases. Moreover, there were those whose monthly appanage increased by fifty or even a hundred. The mayor’s press chief and chief housing and social advisor Bálint Misetics, as well as Jávor Benedek, posted in Brussels, also received salary increases, their money was authenticated by Gergely Karácsony. Benedek Jávor now runs the capital’s Brussels office for HUF 990,000, while Misetics provides social advice to the mayor for HUF 900,000. There were also egregious cases, the salaries of the municipality’s better-known, non-public consultants jumped up enormously, and there were increases of 27, 50, 32 and 99 percent in the list of consultants.
It was also quite “ridiculous”. ten million forints worth of BKV passes were stolen from Gergely Karácsony’s office. Passes were stolen from the humanities department of the Mayor’s Office during renovation work; this was possible because there were several power outages in the building during construction work.
Christmas car chase continued
The whole year was defined in Budapest The Karácsony’s car chase plans, as well as their completely unreasonable closures. The candidate for prime minister, who has failed twice, apparently does not learn from his own mistakes, and does not care that people no longer ask him to ruin their lives in a way that they have no say in it. The mayor plans, his people implement, and then the citizens of Budapest are left with the burden of deliberation, impassable roads and traffic jams. Of course, Gergely Karácsony does not feel much of this, because when he sees hundreds of motorists struggling to get from Buda to Pest on the Erzsébet Bridge, he orders his driver to “drive”, who then speeds along the bus lane, not caring that everyone else but them obeys the rules.
Three years for Christmas was not enough for the normal renovation of Blaha Lujza tér. The investment became HUF 400 million more expensive than the previous plan developed by Mayor István Tarlós, but it was realized with reduced technical content – that is, they did not do everything that was in the plan.
Karácsony subsequently rewrote the schedule of the M3 subway, covering up the quarterly slippage
After it emerged that left-wing city leaders had failed to keep the latest promised first quarter 2023 completion on the M3 line, the Lord Mayor said this information was a lie. However, this date is also listed on the project’s official website. So this was quickly scrapped and amended to May 2023. The Internet, however, has not forgotten.
This year, Karácsony also let the record cheap trams float away. In September, it was revealed that Budapest could get 51 new Cafs at up to 70 more favorable prices than the market price, but according to the city administration, there is money for a maximum of 20. Trams older than 50 years run daily in the capital. If the manufacturer does not “have mercy” at the City Hall, then passengers may lose three dozen modern vehicles. The capital led by Gergely Karácsony has not been able to get one in two on the matter for a year and a half, meanwhile the purchase has become more expensive by more than one billion forints.
It’s also a big scandal that it’s Christmas they simply closed the cogwheel, referring to some excuses.