Parking scandal denounced

A huge corruption case, allegedly involving board members of the state-run parking company Budapesti Önkormányzati Parkolási Kft (BÖP) was revealed by József Duka, a former parking attendant last week.
Duka, who was fired a few weeks ago, told the press that some attendants worked for their own profit, against the company and, thus, the local government. He claimed management of the company was aware of the fraud, and was involved in it.
He said he was ready to testify against his former employer, in spite of a string of alleged death-threats he and his family had received since the story first broke on TV channel RTL Klub.
To back-up his claims, the parking attendant (who was supported by other recently fired colleagues in his allegations) handed the police a list of some 1,000 cars and their owners, saying the list was made by the parking attendants to tally the “private payments.”
According to Duka, most parking attendants (including himself) were involved, and those who didn’t cooperate were quickly fired.
He claims that some 1,000 car owners were also involved in Pest’s Districts IX and XIII, prefering to pay daily “parking fees” of Ft500-Ft1,000 ($3.3-$6.6)  – depending on the area – directly to the attendants rather than buying parking tickets. The areas in question have official hourly parking fees of Ft240 - Ft280 ($1.6 - $1.9), so car owners paid two or four hours for an entire day’s parking.
Estimates in the local media suggest that poorly-paid parking attendants were able to add an extra Ft300,000-Ft400,000 ($2,000-$2,700) a month to their “official” salary of Ft80,000 ($535). At the top end of the scale, they could earn as much as Ft50,000 ($334) a day.
Shortly after the story first broke news website Zoom.hu published a sound recording suggesting that the upper management of BÖP Kft was aware of the fraud. In the recording (taped in secret) CEO Imre Rusznák allegedly talks to some 30 employees, saying “Gentlemen, we know what’s going on and how it is going on.”
When first asked by Hungarian tabloid Blikk about the fraud, Rusznák said he was shocked by the claims of Duka, and he had had no idea that corruption was possible within the company.
But Gyula Horváth, a member of the company’s supervisory board, appeared to admit that the company was aware of its corrupt employees.

Retaliation

Talking to a news program on TV channel TV2, Horváth said the board had been  aware of the problem for eight years (BÖP has been in charge of parking in Pest’s Districts IX, XIII, VI, VII and VIII since 1999).
Horváth also acknowledged that from time to time the board heard from management of unspecified “retaliation.”
His words seem to be in line with the claims of Tamás Bánsági, deputy mayor of Pest’s District IX, who said the municipality, as a part owner of the company, knew that corruption was perpetual.
Bánsági told local daily Népszava that the local government had urged the company to strenghthen its internal controls to stave off corruption.
“It is a part of a healthy purgation process, that this case became public,” Bánsági added.
Estimates concerning the amount of the fraud suggest several hundreds of millions of forints could have been paid illegally to parking attendants over the years. Part of this money was presumably handed over to the the attendants’ bosses (group leaders and managers).
The police and the company have launched investigations. To date, nobody resigned from the management.

Photo: The widely popular use of bogus handicapped IDs is not the only way to dodge paying parking fee on Budapest streets.

Photo by Zsolt Balla