The accusations made by Gergely Karácsony regarding the renovation of the Csillaghegyi Árpád Hot Springs in Óbuda are not true, László Szőke, the former CEO of Budapest Gyógyfürdői és Hévizei Zrt., told Magyar Nemzet that he can support with facts and official documents why it was necessary to raise the investment cost during construction.
The mayor announced on his social media page that he had filed a complaint regarding the reconstruction of the bath, which was handed over three years ago, and therefore the police launched an investigation on the suspicion of misappropriation causing a significant loss of property.
Gergely Karácsony simply lies, as he did before in the case of his language test or his blackmail. I'm not even surprised, because in the opposition primaries he was completely devalued and became a joke. Now, with this case, he wants to prove his ability and toughness to his own allies, said László Szőke .
According to the former head of the Budapest company, none of the statements made by Gergely Karácsony on his social media page correspond to reality. The Karácsonys filed a complaint with the police on charges of misappropriation causing a significant lack of property, according to the mayor, overpricing and misappropriation occurred during the renovation of the Árpád Forrásfürdő in Csillaghegyi with the cooperation of the contractor's company.
First of all, it is not true that we entrusted the work to a friend's company. Through open public procurement, we selected the cheapest of three tenders. Kalotherm Kft., the winner of the tender, has been working on investments ordered by the spa since the nineties, i.e. it was already active under the mayorship of Gábor Demszky That's also why he was able to make a good offer, because he knows Budapest's spas - the former company manager refuted the mayor's claim, then added: it is also a simple lie that payments were made without work. Gergely Karácsony's statement about overpricing is also a distortion, the costs increased due to unforeseen events.
László Szőke recalled: compared to the company's original commitment, the amount of the investment had to be increased by 13.6 percent and the deadline was also delayed. One of the reasons was that archaeologists stopped work for months because they found a II. century Celtic chariot grave.
– The other reason: a part of the Soviet reinforced concrete building built in the 1970s became part of the spa, which was in a much worse condition than we had expected beforehand. The old building had to be statically strengthened, there were water intrusions, the utility tunnel had to be insulated, a wall body slipped, and the vertical water pipes also had to be repaired. And we also built two slides, and Kalotherm Kft. had to do the reception part of them as well.
Several pitfalls arose during the construction of the lower building, we found an old reinforced concrete pool under the building, which was not indicated anywhere. It had to be demolished, it was full of mud, load-bearing soil had to be delivered and the foundation plan had to be modified - the former CEO summarized the extra costs that could not be planned at the start of the renovation. László Szőke also mentioned that the significant rise in construction industry prices began at that time, mainly due to the lack of human resources and the resulting wage increases. As he said: the aforementioned reasons led to the fact that the investment cost more than in the original plan.
These were all real reasons for amending the contract, which can be proven with official documents, all of which are also available to the capital.
The implementing company was so not a "friendly company" that we had disputes with the company after the investment, we wanted to deduct a large amount from their bank guarantee, in which they were not partners.
the full article here.
