The Karácsony-style Budapest city administration does not shy away from blackmailing the government by shutting down BKV in order to get access to ten billion forints - this is also what the key figure of the City Hall case talked about in June 2021 in the almost ten hours of uncut audio recording that Anonymus sent to the investigation of the case to the continuing police. It was as if he had just read it from a sheet of music: in November, the Karácsonys really threatened the government with stopping Budapest's public transport if they did not receive 12 billion from the state. In other words, the Karácsonys demanded the same amount in the winter with the same method and in the same order of magnitude as what was included in the audio recorded in the summer.

City Hall-gate erupted in the fall of 2021 after Anonymus released recordings of several business meetings to the press. During the negotiations, among others, the actors agreed on the sale of the building complex of the Budapest City Hall and the plots belonging to it. Based on the audio materials, the picture emerged that during the mayorship of Gergely Karácsony, a well-defined circle specialized in the sale of municipal real estate and operated a corrupt, so-called commission system.

In the City Hall case, the National Bureau of Investigation launched an investigation on suspicion of influence peddling. The audio materials are part of the investigative materials of the ongoing police investigation into the case, and Anonymus delivered the nearly ten-hour recording to the authorities, namely in an uncut form. The transcripts came into the possession of the Magyar Nemzet, and the paper will take a look at them in the next period .

Gyula Gansperger, who replaced Gordon Bajnai at the head of the Wallis group of companies, was one of the participants in the negotiations regarding the sale of the City Hall. The ex-prime minister Bajnai himself took part in the discussions about the sale of the City Hall, and here he himself named Gansperger as his old comrade in arms. It is no wonder that the businessman was up-to-date and well informed about the political relations and financial tricks of the left.

In one of the transcripts of the June 2021 conversation found in the investigative material of the City Hall case, Gansperger revealed that the Budapest city administration of Karácsony will use the issue of BKV financing to create hysteria and blackmail. Looking through the press reports at the time, it turned out that this is exactly what happened.

"Is it true that they will run out of money on the first of November?" asked Gansperger's interlocutor, to which the businessman responded: "I don't believe them."

"He will stop BKV, he won't care," said the left-wing businessman about Karácsony. When his interlocutor suggested that this was a huge rift with the people of Budapest and that this could not happen, Gansperger snapped: "Anything is possible."

The businessman then spoke about the fact that they would not immediately stop the operation of BKV,

„but I say that in two weeks they will shut down BKV if it does not receive 10 billion budget support". His interlocutor said that "this is blackmail". Gansperger proved him right .

The BKV hysteria of 2021 was thoroughly prepared: Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss - who, according to the Anonymus recordings, may have benefited from corruption money - already said in January of that year: "the capital city government's account will run out of money by November". In response to this, Finance Minister Mihály Varga announced on behalf of the government that at the end of the second quarter of 2020, the Budapest municipality had 27.9 billion forints available, and held 135 billion in government securities. However, there was one more fact that indicated that the mayor and his staff were not worried: at the end of 2020, the managers of the town hall received an even more generous bonus than the previous year. A total of seventy million forints were distributed. On average, the people of Karácsony received a reward of 1.3 million, but there were those who received an amount of seven million

The creation of hysteria seemed to work, especially as articles appeared daily in the left-wing press envisaging the imminent shutdown of the BKV and analyzing its effects. However, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) dropped an atomic bomb on Gergelyék Karácsony's plan.

On November 24, the ministry announced that the financing of BKV could have been secured by the Budapest municipality months ago. In order to transfer the support, Karácsony only had to sign the contract in the ITM. - Payment is subject to signature.

If the city administration cannot solve even this, it will only provide further evidence of the mayor's incompetence, the ministry said. Christmas dragged on for another week, the signing finally took place on November 29, and the scandal died down despite the mayor's intentions.

In the investigation launched due to the City Hall case, the authorities have so far questioned several people, including a crown witness, and suspected Zsolt Berki and his brother József Berki, who are considered key figures in the corruption system operating in the capital and are closely linked to the left. The former approached several well-known business circles in Hungary regarding the purchase of the City Hall, and it is worth mentioning about the latter that he worked alongside the late Péter Kiss at the time when the former MSZP minister's head of secretariat Ambrus Kiss was the current deputy mayor.

Source and full article: Magyar Nemzet

Featured image: MTI/Zoltán Máthé