<\/p>\n
More than 15\u00a0Hungarian MPs omitted agricultural subsidies from their wealth declarations in the last five years, a Direkt36 investigation has found. According to wealth declaration regulations, MPs must declare receiving such state funds.<\/p>\n
One MP failed to declare as much as 12 million HUF (\u20ac39,000), but others left out subsidies of smaller amount, often no more than a few thousand euros. Altogether, 17 MPs have omitted 33 million HUF (106 thousand euros) from their declarations since 2011. Most MPs said that they failed to report their subsidies out of sloppiness or because of the unclear rules of the wealth declaration system.<\/p>\n
These errors are further signs that the declaration system in its current state is barely suitable to show politicians\u2019 assets transparently. Direkt36, 444 and Transparency International have partnered to develop a database, in which anyone can search for the declarations of MPs. The new site, Vagyonkeres\u0151<\/a> (meaning \u2018Asset Locator\u2019 in Hungarian), aims to help hold the politicians accountable. As part of the project, we reported on politicians who violated rules when filling their wealth declarations<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Hungary, landowners and other players in the agriculture business are entitled to agricultural subsidies, paid by the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency (MVH). Subsidies data are available from 2011 in MVH\u2019s public database. By using this data, Direkt36 identified those MPs who failed to report their subsidies in their wealth declarations. According to wealth declaration regulations, all EU and public funds must be declared.<\/p>\n Fidesz MP Zsolt Szab\u00f3 left out the highest amount, 12m HUF (\u20ac39,000). Szab\u00f3 first told Direkt36 that he declared the subsidies as his \u201cother incomes\u201d. He indeed reported that he had revenue of some millions from agricultural activity but he omitted the amount from state subsidies. After we pointed this out to him he acknowledged that he was not accurate enough, and he claims to have corrected his mistake.<\/p>\n This is not the first time that Szab\u00f3\u2019s financial dealings made headlines. He was the mayor of Hatvan, a rural city 60 km east from Budapest, between 2010 and 2014 before becoming the Minister of State responsible for development and climate policy. Tabloid newspaper Blikk reported then that Szab\u00f3 asked for the reimbursement of the same travel expenses both as mayor and as MP. Szab\u00f3 said then that he did not know this was against the rules.<\/p>\n A former Fidesz MP, Mikl\u00f3s Han\u00f3 did not declare nearly 4m HUF (\u20ac12,000). He told Direkt36 that it was not obligatory to declare it as it was \u201cnot an income\u201d. After our reporter had explained to him the wealth declarations rules, however, he eventually acknowledged that maybe he was not attentive enough.<\/p>\n L\u00e1szl\u00f3 F\u00f6ldi, an MP from the Christian Democrats Party, the governing partner of Fidesz, received 1.7m HUF (\u20ac5500) contribution from the MVH, which he failed to declare. F\u00f6ldi told Direkt36 that he simply forgot to declare the subsidies, He added that he will not forget it anymore.<\/p>\n Although most of the MPs who failed to declare the subsidies are from the governing parties, opposition MPs also failed to declare significant amount of public funds. Socialist Tam\u00e1s S\u00f3s, who was an MP between 2002 and 2014, left out 3.5m HUF (\u20ac11,300) from his wealth declarations. S\u00f3s said that he thought he did not have to declare these kind of subsidies. However, he added that he would initiate to amend his wealth declarations as he supports greater transparency. S\u00f3s made headlines in the national media when Hungarian university ELTE stripped him from his Ph.D. title due to plagiarism.<\/p>\n Jobbik MP S\u00e1ndor Kiss, who was an MP between 2010 and 2014, did not declare 1.5m HUF (\u20ac5000). We tried to contact Kiss, but he was abroad and impossible to reach according to his colleague.<\/p>\n There are numerous MPs who declared subsidies granted by MVH, but not the whole amount.\u00a0 <\/span>We reported previously that Fidesz MP L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Tas\u00f3 has been paid subsidies 13 times since 2011 but declared only 5 of these, leaving out a total of 3.2m HUF (\u20ac10,000). Fidesz MPs J\u00f3zsef T\u00f3th and Gy\u00f6rgy Simonka both declared less contribution, too. There were also a few Fidesz MPs like Erik B\u00e1nki, Istv\u00e1n Boldog, Bal\u00e1zs Gy\u0151rffy, Istv\u00e1n Herman and Attila Tilki, and Jobbik MP Zolt\u00e1n Magyar who left out minor subsidies worth around a thousand euros.<\/p>\n Jobbik vice-president J\u00e1nos Volner received HUF 245,000 (\u20ac8000) in order to complete an agricultural course. Volner wrote to Direkt36 that he was uncertain about whether he should declare this grant. \u201cAs Jobbik is the advocate of transparency, I decided to correct my wealth declaration by indicating this amount,\u201d he told Direkt36.<\/p>\n The case of Gy\u00f6rgy Czerv\u00e1n, state minister for agriculture economics, is a special one. He received more than HUF 7 million (22,500 euros) and indicated the subsidies, however, instead of marking the exact amounts, he only stated that the amount of funds was the \u2018statutory amount\u2019. Czerv\u00e1n told Direkt36 that the space in the form for the amount is too small, and the wealth declaration system is not capable for declaring such subsidies properly.<\/p>\n Istv\u00e1n Nagy, another state minister at the Ministry for Agriculture, left out less than half million forints (\u20ac1500). \u201cI did not have any clue that this needs to be declared. Tomorrow I\u2019ll correct my declaration, I have nothing to hide,\u201d Nagy told Direkt36.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI did not have any clue that this needs to be declared,” said one state minister. Other officials also argued that the declaration system is too complicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-444.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[530],"class_list":["post-9607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vagyonnyilatkozatok","author-cap-fabok-balint"],"authors":[{"term_id":530,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"cap-fabok-balint","display_name":"fabok-balint","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","description":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9607"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=9607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Other income<\/h2>\n
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In the name of transparency<\/h2>\n
The MP who did not have a clue<\/h2>\n
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