Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 is an old friend of P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Having played football together for the Dunakeszi Kinizsi futsal team, Benk\u0151 accompanied Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 throughout his political career and was his closest colleague for many years. Until spring 2015, when he left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying he wanted to continue his career in the private sector.<\/p>\n
Although Benk\u0151 has indeed been active in business in recent years, photos published by 444.hu show that in 2020 Benk\u0151 was on the yacht Lady MRD<\/a>, where the Foreign Minister was on holiday with his family incognito. But in the meantime, according to Direkt36’s research, his relationship with the state, and specifically with the foreign ministry headed by Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3, has not been severed.<\/p>\n In 2020, one of his companies, EUTEK \u00c9p\u00edt\u0151 Kft., received nearly 300 million HUF in non-refundable state funding from a back office of Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3’s ministry. Companies in difficulty due to the coronavirus pandemic could apply for this money to avoid having to fire their employees. In return for the support, EUTEK\u00a0 guaranteed to save 4 jobs and invest 560 million HUF. It is not clear what kind of investment was carried out, but the company ended the year with a profit of almost 260 million. A year later, the company decided to pay a dividend of 750 million HUF.<\/p>\n In 2022 Benk\u0151 also became a 95 per cent owner of a construction company with billions in revenues through a company. VER-BAU Ltd. is a company that has been operating for decades and has won large government contracts in recent years, including a 2 billion HUF hospital construction project in 2020.<\/p>\n This summer, he also bought a property management company from pro-government investors who previously operated the Buddha Bar Hotel. Benk\u0151 thus became the owner of two properties on the elegant Budapest street, Andr\u00e1ssy Avenue.<\/p>\n We sent questions to Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 about the purchase price of VER-BAU and the subsidy granted to EUTEK, but he declined to answer. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFA), the aid programme, which Benk\u0151’s company benefited from, was a great success and created 12,600 jobs. However, MFA did not answer specific questions about Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151.<\/p>\n Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151, born in 1978, has the original qualification of an instrument maker. He has been preparing for a career in music since childhood, graduating from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest with a degree in instrument making. In the early 2000s, he taught knowledge of stringed instruments at a college in Gy\u0151r, and as a master instrument maker, he has spoken about his award-winning violins.<\/p>\n In the meantime, he was also interested in politics, and in 2002 he was elected as the leader of Fidelitas, the political youth organization of Fidesz, in Gy\u0151r. Shortly afterwards, he became press secretary to P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3, who also started his career from Fidelitas Gy\u0151r.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Later Benk\u0151 worked for the Gy\u0151r municipality and in 2007 became a senior advisor to the Fidesz mayor Zsolt Borkai. His position in the local elite was reflected in his appointment to the board of the city handball team.<\/p>\n It was at this time that Benk\u0151 began to be attacked by the local opposition over a consultancy contract. Benk\u0151’s company, Component-99 Ltd., had contracted to provide consultancy services to the Fidesz-led Gy\u0151r municipality, however at the time of the contract Benk\u0151 was a member of a city council committee, and was also P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3’s campaign manager.<\/p>\n After the change of government, Benk\u0151 was transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2011, where, according to a document uploaded on Korm\u00e1ny.hu, he became a leading member of Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3’s staff, with a monthly salary of 885 thousand HUF. In the same year, he also became a player for Dunakeszi Kinizsi. According to a video posted on the team’s YouTube channel, Benk\u0151 – nicknamed Sziszi – is one of the founders of the club. Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 also started to play in the team at the same time, he was given the jersey number 30, while Benk\u0151 played with jersey number 31.<\/p>\n In 2012, Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 was appointed for State Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office, while Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 was appointed Chief of Cabinet. Benk\u0151 also accompanied his boss on his professional trips abroad, and a TV report was made about their trip to Vietnam in 2012. In the report, Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 talks about the advantages of opening up to the East and his appointment as state secretary, but the cameras also accompany him to the gym, where he and Benk\u0151 train together in the red jerseys of the Dunakeszi team.<\/p>\n Several people from Dunakeszi Kinizsi and its surroundings have found positions in the Prime Minister’s Office and later in the MFA, close to Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3. In addition to the players, the club’s former managing director became a protocol officer at the Prime Minister’s Office and then head of protocol at the MFA. In 2014, the MFA said in response to HVG’s question about futsal player officials that they never took into account or had any say in what hobby their staff members pursued in their free time.<\/p>\n When Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 moved up the ranks again in 2014, replacing Tibor Navracsics as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Benk\u0151 remained unchanged in his position as Chief of Cabinet. As Vs.hu’s investigation at the time revealed, Benk\u0151 did not have sufficient qualifications to hold the position of Chief of Cabinet, so he officially worked as the coordinator of the Cabinet’s operations.<\/p>\n MFA admitted at that time that Benk\u0151 did not have the right qualifications for the position, but argued that the law allowed him to be employed under certain conditions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Vs.hu revealed that Benk\u0151’s salary in this status was close to 900 thousand HUF, and that he used a Mercedes SUV as a company car, which’s new version costed more than 17 million HUF. The MFA’s reaction to all this was that the car was not new and had already ran hundreds of thousands of kilometers.<\/p>\n Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 left the state administration in spring 2015 to pursue a career in the private sector, according to a statement from the MFA at the time. However, the good relationship with Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 was not broken: after the publication of this article[A1]\u00a0, photos published by 444.hu show that Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 was on holiday with Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 in 2020 on the yacht Lady MRD (we contacted both Benk\u0151 and the MFA about this, but have not yet received a reply). The famous yachting photos were all over the press at that time, and the minister was forced to explain them. Read more about the story here.<\/a><\/p>\n Benk\u0151’s departure from the MFA in 2015 did not completely break the link with resources and opportunities offered by the state. Just a few months before his leaving from the MFA, in March 2015, a decision in favor of Benk\u0151’s interests was made at a meeting of the Committee for Urban Management and Finance of the then Fidesz-led 8th District Municipality of Budapest.<\/p>\n The municipality put up for sale two properties in a prominent location on R\u00e1k\u00f3czi Road, and the winner was Violin-Music Ltd., which at the time belonged to Zsuzsanna Benk\u0151n\u00e9 S\u00e1rv\u00e1ri, and later became the property of Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151. At that time, both of them lived in the same house in Fert\u0151d. Direkt36 asked Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 about his relationship with Zsuzsanna Benk\u0151n\u00e9 S\u00e1rv\u00e1ri, but he did not want to respond.<\/p>\n The municipality asked 38.3 million HUF for the approximately 300 square meter properties, but they were not to be paid immediately: 20 percent was asked for when the contract was signed, and the remaining 30 million HUF was to be collected over the following five years. According to the data sent to Direkt36 by Ingatlan.com, at that time in that part of the district each of the municipal properties could have been worth more than 38 million HUF.<\/p>\n One of the properties is an instrument shop now, run by a company formerly also owned by Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151. The company is now owned by a woman with the same surname as Benk\u0151 – but the shop employee could not say who owns the shop, and the manager refused to answer Direkt36’s questions.<\/p>\n After 2015, Benk\u0151 acquired stakes in a series of companies: not only a musical instrument retailer, but also an IT and catering company, and from 2018 he became owner of a construction company, Eutek Construction Ltd.<\/p>\n The construction industry was hit hard by the coronavirus in 2020, but Benk\u0151’s business was helped out by the state. Eutek received a large amount of state funding in 2020 as non-repayable grant. This nearly 300 million HUF came from the ministry of P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3. The National Investment Promotion Agency, which is part of the MFA, set up a fund called the Competitiveness Increasing Support Program, to provide funds to companies that had been hit by the economic difficulties caused by the pandemic but were prepared to invest in new projects while retaining their employees.<\/p>\n From this fund, Eutek won 280 million HUF as state aid, which was provided in one sum. In return, it has committed to retaining four jobs and investing a total of 560 million HUF. At the exchange rate at that time, Eutek received almost the maximum amount of aid available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nTeam-mate for twenty years<\/h2>\n
Private sector, with public passes<\/h2>\n