Media entrepreneur Gyula Balásy has resigned ownership of his shares in all his media, communication and events companies and offered them to the state in an interview, news wire MTI reports.
Reacting to his announcement, Márk Radnai, deputy leader of the Tisza Party and MP, accused the “multi-billionaire of NER” of “trying to exonerate himself in a quivering voice”, adding that “nothing will be forgotten”.
In the Kontroll website interview released on YouTube late on Monday, the host, Zsolt Tótváradi, said Balasy’s business empire had received contracts worth more than HUF 350 billion in recent years, with the majority of the orders coming from cabinet office head Antal Rogán’s “propaganda ministry” and the affiliated communications office.
Balásy said he had come to the interview with a notarized document, offering the corporate group he had built to the Hungarian state “with all the knowledge, property rights, and non-property rights contained therein.”
He denied all wrongdoing, noting a report alleging that their work had been overpriced.
“We can account for everything,” he said.
Regarding the value of the businesses in question, Balásy said conservative estimates put their worth at HUF 80 bln. Together with the value of its contracts, the companies are worth between EUR 100-200 billion, he said.
He explained that he was making the offer “because the activities we carried out for the state so far go beyond market communication tasks and performing these tasks is best suited within the public sector.”
He expressed hope that the move would not put the jobs of the companies’ 500 employees at risk.
In his reaction, Radnai said Balásy had been long known “as the Fidesz ‘poster boy’ [responsible for advertising hoardings], who for the past eight years has essentially monopolized the entire state communications market, embodying every form of corruption we despised in the Orbán regime and which we removed for good on April 12.”
He said Antal Rogán had spent HUF 1,300 bln on propaganda, from which Balasy’s companies generated an annual profit of HUF 25 bln. All this while, since 2018, almost every major state contract ended up with them.
Moreover, a significant portion of the work was not even carried out by them, but by subcontractors, while the profit remained with Balásy throughout.
“We also know that Balásy has option rights in further companies. And let’s not forget: this money was not made on the open market. It was paid by us, the Hungarian people!” Radnai wrote in his post.
In the Kontroll interview, when asked about his personal wealth, Balásy said: “I am a wealthy man, but I have invested the majority of the profits earned by my companies; I have also purchased properties for rental purposes and have begun construction projects for my family.”
