Socialists demand removal of cbank governor

Budapest, August 29 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party has called for the removal of National Bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy over recent purchases the central bank has made.

Matolcsy is “throwing money to the wind with no control”, Socialist lawmaker Lajos Korozs, deputy head of parliament’s welfare committee, told a press conference on Friday.

Korozs referred to acquisitions by the National Bank such as a mansion near the river Tisza, a luxury office complex in central Budapest, as well as grants totalling 200 billion forints for the bank’s own foundations.

Korozs noted that the 200 billion was 150 percent above the annual central subsidy for Hungary’s higher education. He insisted that Matolcsy is “playing Monopoly” with the central bank, and he “thinks that when he works with money he can spend it on anything he likes”.

On Thursday, Matolcsy said that the grants served the central bank’s own economy courses, taught “without the failed neo-liberal ideas”. He also insisted that the transactions were covered from the central bank’s profit rather than from taxpayers’ forints.

The opposition E-PM party alliance also criticised the governor of the central bank saying that Matolcsy “is running amok, and it is in our shared interest to stop him”.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters