In Makó on Tuesday, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár announced that the Prime Minister’s Office has launched proceedings in the Metro 4 fraud case.

Following a public forum, Mr. Lázár told reporters that this was the largest corruption case of the past twenty-seven years.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has stated that contracts worth HUF 166 billion within the HUF 430 billion project are involved in the corruption case. Of this HUF 166 billion, Hungary is expected to immediately repay HUF 76 billion to the European Union.

The Minister explained that the Government must examine how it could reclaim the remaining funding related to these contracts – most of which was raised domestically, and is therefore Hungarian taxpayers’ money.

Mr. Lázár pointed out that OLAF seeks to protect EU taxpayers’ money, and the Government must protect Hungarian taxpayers’ money.

He further said that if the Hungarian investigation finds similar irregularities, according to the Public Finance Act the Government must reclaim the funds granted to the project.

(MTI)