henry copeland:

Hungary loses 700 billion in EU funding because of rigged project bidding?

It was not the system the Commission criticized but the specific requirements stated in the tenders. They were formulated in such a way that for all intents and purposes only one company could fulfill all of them. So there was no competition. Moreover, the projects were grossly overpriced, on average by 46%. […]The auditors came to Hungary in November and randomly chose not thousands but only 55 applications, out of which they found 16, or 29%, unacceptable. It would take too long to report on all the individual cases, so I chose two I found especially outrageous. One involves Közgép, Lajos Simicska’s company, that won the tender to build a harbor on Csepel Island for 3.6 billion forints. The tender was written in such a way that only Közgép could compete. The government demanded several previous accomplishments that were totally unnecessary to accomplish the job. It wasn’t enough to show that a company had earlier built at least a 2,000 meter network of street lighting; it had to have been done on an “industrial site.” The same was true about a 5,000 m² basalt-concrete facing. The construction of a three kilometer asphalt road also had to be accomplished in an industrial setting. As if there were any difference between roads or lighting inside or outside of an industrial park. But the best was that, in order to get the job, the company had to have built at least 2,000 m. long railroad tracks. There were no railroads anywhere near the harbor. The fine in this case alone is 633 million forints.
- hungarianspectrum.org