Socialists: Government fails to give credible account of border protection costs

The government has failed to provide a credible account of the extraordinary costs of border protection linked to the migration crisis, deputy head of parliament’s defence and police committee Tamás Harangozó, of the opposition Socialists, said on Friday.

Harangozó said his party had turned to the relevant ministries and state bodies with a request for data in the public interest after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán asked the European Union last year to pay half of Hungary’s costs linked to migration which he said totalled 270 billion forints (EUR 870m).

The responses show that the government is spending taxpayer money with abandon under the cover of the migration crisis, the Socialist told a press conference.

Harangozó cited the example of 23 billion forints spent on building transit zones. Every bed cost seven times as much as the estimated cost of a bed in eight new prisons planned to be built across Hungary, he said.

Only 1.3 billion forints were spent on refugee services, some 100 million forints less than the allocation for communication costs. The police force said its costs totalled 60 billion forints but this probably also included spending not directly related to border protection, Harangozó said.