BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) 鈥� Hungary’s foreign ministry has filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors over what it says was possible fraud related to the previous government’s purchase of ventilators worth some $965 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Anita Orb谩n said Tuesday.
Hungary’s previous government under former Prime Minister purchased the roughly 17,000 ventilators from China in March and April 2020, at the time that it was buying far more units than could be realistically deployed and paying much more per unit than other European countries.
In a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Orb谩n, who is not related to the former prime minister, said the results of a ministry investigation into the purchase 鈥渞aises suspicions of breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly substantial financial loss and other criminal offenses.鈥�
She didn’t detail specific allegations, but noted that the investigation involved tens of thousands of documents 鈥� some of which had to be recovered using digital tools 鈥渁fter unsuccessful attempts to delete them鈥� 鈥� and raised further questions 鈥渁bout the responsibility of the ministry鈥檚 former senior leadership.鈥�
A statement released on the Hungarian government鈥檚 website on Tuesday pointed to other suspected irregularities related to the ventilator procurement, including that most of the units were purchased through intermediary companies that saw their revenues rise exponentially due to the transaction.
Some of the ventilators were defective, and a significant proportion of them was never deployed, the statement reads, adding that storage costs for the unused devices ran into the millions of dollars.
Hungary’s former foreign minister cultivated close ties with China during his nearly 12 years in office, and oversaw the purchase of the ventilators as well as the of the China-produced Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine.
Last month, Szijj谩rt贸 to take an executive position with Chinese automaker BYD, prompting accusations of a conflict of interest due to his role in facilitating substantial government subsidies given to the company while in office.
Hungary’s government later into large investments into Hungary made by BYD during Szijj谩rt贸’s tenure.
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