Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office to be set up as stand-alone ministry – UPDATE
Budapest, September 22 (MTI) – The Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office will be established as an independent ministry.
The related bill was presented to parliament on Tuesday.
The cabinet office will be a ministry in charge of general political coordination, according to the bill submitted by Janos Lazar, the minister who heads the Prime Minister’s Office.
The prime minister’s cabinet chief will be Antal Rogan, who leads the Fidesz parliamentary group.
Lazar proposed supplementing the 2015 central budget with a chapter concerning the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office.
The government will grant funds required for the operation of the new office.
“Its main task will be whatever the prime minister defines,” Rogan, the outgoing group leader of the ruling Fidesz party, said after a bill went before parliament on Tuesday for setting up a new stand-alone cabinet ministry to carry out general political coordination tasks.
In the current government model, the prime minister’s office, headed by Janos Lazar, carries out various tasks. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has now decided that this should be supplemented by a cabinet office to carry out general political coordination, Rogan told MTI.
The cabinet office will employ the premier’s personal working team whose main task will be to aid Orban, Rogan said. A government statute will be published at a later date, defining tasks for the various independent units within the new office. He added that one such task will be the coordination of communications.
Rogan will be formally appointed after parliament approves the bill as early as next week.
The opposition parties ridiculed the move, the Socialists alleging “heavy infighting” and power games between ruling politicians “only concerned for their own futures.”
Radical nationalist Jobbik lawmaker Eniko Hegedus said it was “odd” that a ministry would be assigned to Rogan, with ties to “off-shore knight Andy Vajna, a winner of the murky casino concessions.”
Democratic Coalition spokesman Zsolt Greczy said: “Rogan will serve as a propaganda minister … coordinating lies and hate campaigns.”
Referring to Janos Lazar, who will keep his job as minister in charge of the government office, the Dialogue for Hungary party said Lazar and Rogan were “two bickering confidants [of the prime minister] who get a ministry each.”
Peter Juhasz, deputy leader of Egyutt, said on Facebook: “There will be two prime ministerial ministers” serving from now on, adding that there will “obviously be a need of another 10-15 new state secretaries and another three dozen deputy state secretaries.”
Photo: MTI
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters
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