Prime Minister Péter Magyar, in a video posted on Facebook on Monday, drew attention to a golden lift and gold-plated bathroom fittings in the National Bank of Hungary’s headquarters on Szabadság Square which, he said, had cost the taxpayer 105 billion forints.
The video shows gold-plated fittings, including the bathroom taps, toilet brush holder, toilet paper holder and bin, as well as the building’s golden lift, the Hungarian News Agency wrote.
Magyar noted that criminal proceedings are currently under way in connection with the central bank, and Mihaly Varga, the NBH’s governor, briefed him about a civil lawsuit in progress, with the bank’s current leadership seeking to recover funds from the contractor due to a suspected price discrepancy.
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“The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office will no doubt have a word or two to say about this,” the prime minister said.
Magyar said that 105 billion forints of public funds had gone, among other things, on gold-plated toilets during the renovation of the bank’s headquarters.
“This is why Viktor Orbán and his cronies burned through so much public money: so that [former central bank governor] György Matolcsy could feel like Jay Gatsby in 1920s New York,” Magyar said.
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