Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Hungary’s government rejected an ultimatum by thousands of protesters to fire tax authority chief Ildiko Vida, one of six officials barred from entry to the U.S. on suspicion of corruption.

“I’d be doing the worst thing if I were to let go the head of the tax authority without a serious probe,” Economy Minister Mihaly Varga said on public radio MR1 today. “I’m not going to do that.”

Thousands of Hungarians marched in Budapest yesterday, giving Vida, who has denied wrongdoing, one week to resign or else threatening to organize a new rally for Nov. 17. Hungarians are joining street protests organized on Facebook, that hone in on perceived government corruption and a lack of accountability under Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Last month, Orban ignited two of the biggest demonstrations since he came to power in 2010, with a proposal to tax Internet use. He withdrew it after tens of thousands rallied across Hungary in opposition.

One of the speakers yesterday was Andras Horvath, a whistle-blower who left the tax office last year alleging that it refused to probe as much as $4 billion in value-added tax fraud annually. After Horvath went public with his claim, the Economy Ministry conducted a probe of the tax authority over a weekend in November last year and found nothing wrong.

Ultimatum

“The government and the tax authority had a year but it didn’t act, now they have one week,” protest organizers said on their Facebook profile page “One trillion people for a decent tax system.”

The U.S. imposed travel bans on six Hungarian officials suspected of corruption, acting on “credible information,” its embassy in Budapest said on Oct. 17. The U.S. declined a request from the Orban government to share its information.

Orban has overseen the most far-reaching centralization of power since the fall of the Iron Curtain, curtailing the courts and appointing allies to independent institutions including the Constitutional Court, the media authority, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the state Audit Office and the central bank.

The weakening of checks and balances under Orban has led to “state capture” by “powerful interest groups” in Hungary, Transparency International said in a report published in 2012. It cited corruption risks stemming from the “symbiotic relationship between the political and business elite.”