NBH scandal – Central bank foundations fined for dodging public procurement rules

Budapest, June 29 (MTI) – The Public Procurement Board (KDB) established that the public procurement law is applicable to the Pallas Athene Foundations which were established by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH), and fined the six foundations 200,000 forints (EUR 630) each, the foundations said in a press release on Wednesday.

The foundations themselves filed a request with the KDB for a review of their procurement practices and a decision regarding their status on May 13, following a Constitutional Court ruling which established that the foundations were managing public funds.

Parallel with requesting the KDB review, the central bank foundations voluntarily subjected themselves to the regulations of the public procurement law, they said in the press release.

When deciding on only a minor fine, KDB took into consideration that the foundations initiated the review of their practises themselves.

The foundations said they will publish their contracts for the sake of transparency and safeguard the funds entrusted to them and use their yields to perform activities beneficial to society.

The endowment of the Pallas Athene Foundations from the central bank stood at a little over 267 billion forints in June and included almost 175 billion forints in government securities. The bank set them up in 2014.

Source: mtva.hu