While Gergely Karácsony focused on his national political ambitions since occupying the mayor's seat, city management has been completely pushed into the background, there is little expertise for this in Karácsony's cabinet, István Tarlós told the Mediaworks News Center. The former first person of Budapest also pointed out that while the Karácsonys complain that the coffers are empty, no real, accurate data about the financial situation of Budapest has been published so far.

- Together with Gergelly Karácsony, the renovated underground stations of the M3 metro were handed over. Does this mean some kind of friendship?

– It is true that I worked a lot on this project, but at the request of the Prime Minister, I now represented the government at the handover, since the Orbán cabinet supported this renovation with a lot of money. We had a civilized, one might say friendly, conversation with Kárácson, but this does not mean that we are generally in great agreement. While there are few similarities, there are significant differences between our personalities.

- Gergely Karácsony has been complaining about a lack of funds almost since he took over the mayor's office, even though you handed over HUF 200 billion to the coffers. How do you see this amount being spent responsibly?

- It is true, in December 2019 we still had the HUF 200 billion - HUF 160 billion in securities, HUF 40 billion in cash - that we left in the cash register, and the Karácsony people have not disputed this for about a year and a half. I don't know exactly what happened to this amount, but it is certain that they could have started two big projects much earlier.

In a technical and economic sense, it is completely incomprehensible why the start of the Chain Bridge renovation, which we had completely prepared, was postponed for a year and a half. Also why the reconstruction of Blaha Lujza tér, which we also prepared, had to be redesigned with a much narrower technical content.

By the way, no other major investment has started in the capital in the last two and a half years. We started the renovation of metro line 3, including the reconstruction of the tunnel, stations, tracks and safety equipment, well before my time in office, and almost half of it was completed.

- While the Karácsonys delayed and postponed the start of the investments, this year they only planned a six-month budget, trusting in the victory of the left.

- Suddenly, I don't even know if the legislation even recognizes such a thing as a half-year budget. I do not rule it out, although during my term of office it did not even occur that we plan the budget for a whole year, but such a thing did not happen during the Demszky era either. In fact, it is mandatory to forecast certain numbers several years in advance. However, it is certain that in the end a report must be prepared for the entire year. This cannot be avoided. By the way, for two and a half years, we have not been able to hear any real, accurate data about Budapest's financial situation from the current city administration.

The full article of Magyar Nemzet can be read here.

Author: András Kárpáti

Image: Hungarian Nation