Socialists protest delay in Metro 3 refurbishment, Olympic plans

Budapest (MTI) – Speakers in a protest organised by the opposition Socialists criticised the management of Budapest for delays in the refurbishment of the city’s third metro line, the transfer of municipal assets to the state, and Budapest’s 2024 Olympic bid, on Friday.

Ágnes Kunhalmi, the party’s Budapest leader, said that not only the metro but schools and hospitals were also in a bad state. She added that “Fidesz keeps pointing backwards” and blames the previous governments while they have been in power for seven years.

Kunhalmi insisted that users of Budapest’s public transport – some 500,000 people each day – “cannot understand why there is no money for metro repairs” whereas other projects like a small railway in the prime minister’s native Felcsút are granted financing. “How do they want to host the Olympics when they cannot fix 20 metro stations?” she asked.

Kunhalmi also demanded that the government should publish a recent report compiled by the European Union’s anti-fraud office (OLAF) concerning fraudulent activities involved in the construction of Budapest’s fourth metro line.

In response, ruling Fidesz suggested that the Socialists should “turn themselves in” at the prosecutor’s office and testify rather than “keep holding demos”.

“The Socialists now have a written certificate that they have stolen one third of the Metro 4 construction budget,” authors of the statement insisted.

Source: MTI