Opposition Párbeszéd has criticised the government’s 2022 draft budget, calling it an “election budget” that would benefit “the usual contractors” involved in investment projects rather than the Hungarian people.
“The government is carrying on with its habit of flooding the entire country with cement if it has to just to guarantee contracts for its own construction companies,” Sándor Burány, Párbeszéd’s deputy group leader, told an online press conference. Burány added that it was “pointless” to submit next year’s draft budget this early given the uncertainty around the pandemic. He said it was also clear that the government would be incapable of meeting many of its targets, including its 3% inflation target. The public debt level targeted by the budget ” is essentially the same as where the government started from in 2010, even though they have since stolen 3,000 billion forints (EUR 8.3bn) from private pension funds to spend on reducing the debt”, he insisted. Burány said loans given to Hungary by Russia and China for major investment projects like the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant and setting up the Budapest campus of China’s Fudan University would also add to the public debt while hurting the country’s political independence.
hungarymatters.hu
