The mayor of Budapest bypassed the city assembly and decided all by himself about the public procurement procedure seemingly designed for a German company.

The Public Procurement Authority is initiating legal action in the case of the multi-million euro tram procurement tender of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Press reports revealed on Friday that the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) had conducted negotiations on the procurement of trams prior to launching the tender, by which it might have given unfair advantage to one of the bidders. Mayor Gergely Karacsony in June accepted Deputy Mayor Kata Tutto’s on purchasing used trams without air conditioning. The mayor thus may have decided about the public procurement procedure designed for one company all by himself, without consulting the city assembly.

Due to the large number of easily identifiable parameters and specifics of the procurement which appeared before the publication of the call, there is a strong suspicion that the chances of other market players to participate effectively in the procurement procedure were extremely low,

the Public Procurement Authority writes in a report published on its website about the tender of the used trams recommended by Ms Tutto. (It is also curious that they wanted to buy trams without air conditioning, as Mayor Karacsony in his campaign strongly advocated climatised public transport vehicles. On one occasion he and his fellow party members boarded the underground with towels around their necks waving „Tarlos Sauna” boards, referring to then Mayor Istvan Tarlos.)

The president of the Public Procurement Authority has initiated a legal procedure at the Public Procurement Arbitration Board for „conflict of interest and the serious breach of the fundamental principles on the equal opportunities of tenderers, and filed the necessary criminal report.”