However, after a refused freedom of information (FOI) request and a four-month-long trial, Direkt36 received documents proving that one company of the Orb\u00e1n family did participate as a subcontractor in a huge railway reconstruction project on the Southern side of \u201cHungary\u2019s sea,\u201d the Lake Balaton. The company called Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Ltd. receives nearly HUF300 million (\u20ac970 thousand) from the project.<\/p>\n
In Hungarian construction projects, companies may participate at three different levels. Public tenders are won by main contractors, or consortia of several main contractors, which are responsible for the full implementation of the projects. These main contractors can hire so-called subcontractors for the executions of specific parts of the projects. Similar to main- and subcontractors, those companies that supply building materials for the construction also receive public money \u2013 on the market, these companies are called suppliers.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nehezko2.jpg\")
Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 kft. on one of the project documents<\/p><\/div>\n
Public information is only published about the main-and subcontractors of state projects. However, companies of the Orb\u00e1n family participated in state projects at a lower level, as suppliers, that is why their involvement could remain hidden. In recent months, Direkt36 has found several evidences<\/a> of the companies\u2019 involvement in state projects, but only as suppliers of building materials. Now documents of the Lake Balaton railway project reveal that at least in one case, the Orb\u00e1n family received public money also as a subcontractor.<\/p>\n Last June, Viktor Orb\u00e1n told Direkt36 that he would \u201ccheck out\u201d whether his family members really participate in state projects – before the publication of our article, we asked Orb\u00e1n whether he did so since the press conference. We also told him that the documents we acquired prove that his family\u2019s company is a subcontractor of a state project, and asked whether he thinks this is problematic, but the PM did not answer our questions.<\/p>\n In spite of the fact that back in 2001, the Orb\u00e1n explicitly asked his father to stay away from state funded projects, in a series of articles we have revealed that the recently outstanding performance of the businesses of the prime minister\u2019s family has been helped by their involvement in numerous state projects, mainly financed by the European Union.<\/p>\n Companies owned by Orb\u00e1n\u2019s father and brothers participated in public projects including motorway and sewerage system constructions. In an article published in November, we revealed that an Orb\u00e1n-company also worked on the railway construction at Lake Balaton.<\/p>\n The renovation of a 53-kilometer-long railway line on the Southern side of Lake Balaton started in 2016 and planned be completed this autumn. The final budget of the investment is HUF 72.4 billion (\u20ac232 million), HUF 16.9 billion (\u20ac54 million) higher than originally estimated. 79 percent of the project is financed from European Union funds. The public procurement was won by a consortium of three companies: R-Kord \u00c9p\u00edt\u0151ipari Ltd., V-H\u00edd Ltd. and Swietelsky Vas\u00fattechnika Ltd. R-Kord is owned by L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, the Prime Minister\u2019s friend, whose wealth increased massively over recent years. V-H\u00edd is majority owned by Istv\u00e1n S\u00e1rv\u00e1ry, former deputy state secretary. Swietelsky Vas\u00fattechnika is a Hungarian subsidiary of the Austria-based Swietelsky Group, a frequent winner of public tenders in Hungary.<\/p>\n At the site of the reconstruction, several workers said that some of the building materials used for the project came from a mining company, whose majority shareholder is the PM\u2019s father Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n. The main contractors and state institutions, however, refused to answer our questions about the origins of the building materials.<\/p>\n This is why we launched a lawsuit in August against the state-owned National Infrastructure Development Company (NIF), acting as the main developer of road and railway construction projects, with the help of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and with the pro bono support of a lawyer, Zsolt Szegedi. In December, the court of first instance ruled that NIF has to provide data both on subcontractors and suppliers, free of charge.<\/p>\n NIF has not yet named the suppliers of the projects, but it did send us data about the subcontractors. The main contractors hired a total of 134 subcontractors, including Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Ltd, which produced the most impressive growth in recent years among all companies owned by the Orb\u00e1n family. The company was founded in 2004, and it had been co-owned for years by the PM\u2019s father and two younger brothers. Since October 2017, the company is solely owned by the PM\u2019s father, Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n. According to the company\u2019s website, it purchased a fleet of trucks in 2012, which allows if to transport the building materials of Dolomit Ltd, a mining company majority owned by Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n Until 2017 October, the 134 subcontractors became entitled for a total of HUF21.6 billion (\u20ac69.7 million) of payments from the project budget. M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros and M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros Ltd. – owned by L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, the Prime Minister\u2019s friend – became entitled for the highest amount (HUF2.64 billion, \u20ac8.5 million), followed by H\u00edd T\u00e1m Ltd, owned by the brother of L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, J\u00e1nos M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros (HUF 1.67 billion, \u20ac5.4 million). Among 134 subcontractors, Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Ltd. receives the 18th highest amount, HUF298 million (\u20ac962 thousand) in total.<\/p>\n Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Ltd. became entitled for payments in last March, April, May and October. The documents sent by NIF do not detail what services the company provided for the project, and neither NIF, the main contractors, nor Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 answered our request to provide more details about the company\u2019s involvement in the project. Apart from Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Ltd, 14 other freight companies participated in the project as subcontractors, but neither of them became entitled for higher payment than the Orb\u00e1n company.<\/p>\nSubcontractors at Lake Balaton: the Orb\u00e1ns and the M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros<\/h3>\n
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\nBecome a supporting member now!<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\nAlmost HUF300 million for the PM\u2019s father<\/h3>\n