The government will regroup more than HUF 15 billion for the procurement of health care supplies used in the effort to contain the coronavirus, the spokesperson of the Government Communication Centre said on Kossuth Radio’s programme ‘Good morning, Hungary’ on Wednesday.

Örs Farkas said on Tuesday four decrees related to the containment of the coronavirus epidemic had been released in Magyar Közlöny [Hungarian Gazette]. The two most important of these are the reallocation of HUF 15 billion and the relief measure related to debt repayments.

Regarding the latter, he said from now the debt repayment moratorium will also apply to the participants of the National Asset Management Programme and employer loans.

They also decided that the costs accumulated by banks after the repayment moratorium extending to 31 December will have to be distributed fairly and evenly for every year.

“The government is doing its job, the problem is that opposition Members of Parliament do not in the least appreciate their share of responsibility in the present kind of containment effort,” he said.

On the Wednesday programme of the public service television news channel M1, Mr Farkas said it is hypocritical that while opposition Members of Parliament are not helping the work of Parliament and the government in taking effective measures against the spread of the coronavirus, they say not a word about the fact that Mayor of Budapest Gergely Karácsony is making decisions on his own, and by doing so “he has seized all power, so to speak”.

He recalled that the state of danger had been declared for a fixed term which will expire in the coming days. This means that some measures adopted during this period will also cease to have effect.

He stressed that opposition Members of Parliament should have supported the government in the extension of the state of danger, and this decision could have been adopted already on Tuesday. Without this, the government will have to wait a few days before it is able to extend the state of danger, and until then there will be a transitional period, he added.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)