Police launch investigation into Quaestor
Budapest (MTI) – The Hungarian police have launched an investigation of brokerage Quaestor on suspicion of fraud, the National Police Headquarters told MTI on Wednesday.
Quaestor’s headquarters was raided as a part of the investigation, the police said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Socialist Party said that clients of brokerages affected by the difficulties should be fully compensated and the people responsible for the losses should publicly declare their personal assets. Jozsef Tobias, the party’s leader, told a news conference held in front of the central bank’s headquarters that the most important tasks ahead were to compensate clients for their losses and restore trust in the financial system.
Zsolt Molnar, head of Parliament’s national security committee, requested urgent information from relevant authorities concerning national security risks around brokerage companies that have recently gone bankrupt.
The ruling Fidesz party said that Hungary’s left-wing parties represented the interests of the fraudster brokerage firms. In a statement referring to the Buda-Cash and the Quaestor affairs, the party’s parliamentary group said it was senseless for the Socialists to try to deny responsibility, since during their time in government nothing had been done to prevent the decade-long financial corruption, and “they even introduced laws and appointed brokers to government positions to help them”.
“The left-wing has a thousand ties to the network of companies around Buda-Cash, with people associated with the Socialists, DK, Egyutt and PM sitting in these companies,” the statement added. The owner of the Quaestor group maintained good relations in the Gyurcsany-Bajnai governments before 2010, the statement said. The ruling party expects the people who run these companies to be held responsible and their personal assets should be freed up to compensate clients who suffered losses, it added.
Bence Tuzson, spokesman for Fidesz’s parliamentary group, called the Quaestor affair “another Socialist broker scandal” and pledged his party’s protection for all those “that have investment in Hungary”. Referring to a “desperate Leftist attempt to shun responsibility”, he said that the investigations would identify the perpetrators and added that “those responsible for the situation” will have to “pay those funds back to the hard-working depositors”.
Radical nationalist Jobbik said blame for the brokerage scandal could be laid at the feet of both the ruling Fidesz party and its governing predecessor, the Socialists. Janos Volner, the party’s deputy group leader, told a news conference that businessmen associated with Quaestor maintained good relations with both parties.
The Democratic Coalition demanded that parliament establish a committee to examine the “scandal of the decade” in an impartial way. Laszlo Varju, a deputy leader of the party, said the committee would hold hearings for officials at the central bank and all those implicated in the Questor and Buda-Cash scandals.
The Quaestor brokerage case was the biggest brokerage scandal in Hungary in the past 25 years and “it demonstrates the nature of the Orban regime,” the Egyutt party said. Hard-working ordinary people are again coming out worse-off and “hard-stealing” politicians and their friends will again come out better-off from it, Levente Papa, the party’s deputy leader, said. “Oligarchs close to Fidesz” stole 150 billion forints (EUR 490m) from ordinary people and now “have the cheek” to turn to the state for help and get taxpayers to rescue them, he added.
The Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party said it would be difficult to deny that the Quaestor case is Fidesz’s scandal. The party’s economic expert Zsolt Szabo said that central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy owes an explanation because the financial supervisory system developed under his leadership had failed. Quaestor is also linked to Fidesz through soccer since the company’s head, Csaba Tarsoly, is also the owner of a the Gyor ETO club, a board member of the Hungarian Football Federation and a “close acquaintance” of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he added. Tarsoly has often been seen “posing” with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at various events, he said.  Â
The Liberal Party said the scandal was squarely in the court of Fidesz and the governor of the central bank. Zoltan Bodnar, the party’s economic policy advisor, told a news conference that the National Bank of Hungary had failed in its capacity as a financial supervisor while Fidesz, as the governing force, had failed to act as a legislator regulating the state.
The government spokesman said that the cabinet had reviewed the matter and concluded that measures taken since 2010 have “created conditions for the country to get rid of financial corruption”. Zoltan Kovacs added that the government monitors the developments and relevant procedures under way.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministry denied allegations that the government had helped Csaba Tarsoly to “lucrative deals” in connection with Quaestor’s trading house in Moscow. Quaestor has not received public funds under any title, the ministry said in its statement, adding that the Quaestor group opearated the Hungarian visa centre in Moscow as an initiative of its own, receiving no remuneration from Hungary’s central budget.
Photo: MTI
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters