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The National Tax and Customs Office closed the bank account of the Metropolitan Municipality of Romani Nationality (FRNÖ) after the organization had accumulated a debt equivalent to twenty times its annual budget support.
The minority self-government debt amounts to 177 million HUF, while its annual grant is 9 million HUF.
Most of the debt, almost 154 million HUF, goes to the Hungarian State Treasury. The Metropolitan Municipality owes more than 23 million HUF to the organization.
Gábor Kerpel-Fronius According to the deputy mayor, the total debt was incurred in connection with the operation of the European Polytechnic Business Vocational School (also known as the Romani European Vocational Higher School) previously maintained by the FRNÖ. We reported negligence in closing the school two years ago. Then, among others, it turned out that the institution did not pay its teachers adequately either.
FRNÖ, as maintainer of the canceled school, should be held responsible for debt incurred after the school closed due to unpaid rents and inadequate accounting with state standards, Kerpel-Fronius said. The momentary politician emphasized that the organization is an independent and separate legal entity from the Metropolitan Municipality, which is responsible for the security and regularity of its management. However, he added, the city council will decide whether to file a complaint based on the results of an ongoing internal investigation.
Meanwhile, NAV has been investigating the organization for budget fraud for nearly five years. A recent fact is that FRNÖ’s bank account has been blocked, so the organization has become insolvent and can no longer pay its overhead costs. Although the tax office does not provide any information on the status of the investigation, claiming that this is an ongoing case, János Csóka, President of FRNÖ and Balázs Purebl, the former director of the school claimed that NAV had not questioned him until today.
Csóka admitted in our newspaper that the local Roma government is bankrupt and it is clear that it will not be able to pay the debt of almost 177 million guilders. As you said, they are negotiating debt relief. Since 2015, the organization’s president has led the self-government of the Roma in Budapest with an eight-month hiatus. It is therefore somewhat surprising that when asked which programs may be left behind in your organization, you said:
So I don’t know by heart. It has always been determined by the municipality what program it does.
In any case, the minority organization does not have a website, so it is not possible to find out exactly what activities they carry out on the Internet.
Cover image: János Pál Csóka, president of the Municipality of Capital Gypsy Nationality. Photo: Attila Kovács / MTI
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