"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."
Lord Kelvin

Share of net contact value of tenders won by crony (MGTS+) companies in Hungary in total net contract value with and without of Belgrad – Budapest railway project

Databases

January 31, 2022.

The document (“contract award notice”) for an important and high-value public tender [the “Procurement for the upgrading of the Soroksár (incl.)– Kelebia (country border) railway line EPC contract" in the Belgrade-Budapest railway project"] is not among the documents made public by the Hungarian public procurement authority (https://kozbeszerzes.hu/adatbazis/keres/hirdetmeny/). The details of this contract are only available in the EU TED database (https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED%3ANOTICE%3A273581-2019%3ATEXT%3AHU%3AHTML&src=0&). The value of this contract is more than 2 billion USD.
This public tender was won by a company (RM International ltd) indirectly owned by a childhood friend of Viktor Orbán (Lőrinc Mészáros) in a consortium with two other companies. Among the subcontractors are three companies partially owned by Lőrinc Mészáros (R-Kord ltd; V-Híd ltd; FEJÉR-B.Á.L. ltd), and one company owned by his son-in-law (Vasútvill ltd). Another subcontractor is a company founded by the father of Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in 1991 and directly co-owned by him until 2012 (Vasútépítők ltd). If this contract is not taken into account, the value of public contracts won by crony (MGTS+) companies alone or in consortia with other companies represents 25% of the total net value of public contracts in 2019. If this contract is included, the share is 38 percent.

Tables and figures: (xlsx)

Data of contract analysed: (csv)