“In the days following his appointment, there was an unprecedented indignation and loss of trust on the part of employees and former colleagues. Many current and former employees reported on previous management experiences on the basis of which they consider Dénes Nemcsok unfit to manage an organization of such importance” – this is how it begins petitionin which the former deputy state secretary of the Fidesz governments, for the re-appointment of Dénes Nemcsok as State Secretary they are asking Minister Viktória Lőrincz to withdraw it.
In mid-June, Nemcsok was given the position of State Secretary of the Ministry of Rural and Urban Development of the Tisza government, along with the supervision of the National Development Center (NFK), which is responsible for the use of EU budget resources.
This makes Dénes Nemcsok one of the highest-ranking officials of the Orbán government, who was also signed by the new cabinet.
The transfer of the 49-year-old lawyer-engineer to the new system caused spectacular indignation in his own circle. The petition, which was also sent to the Tisza government, was signed by more than 1,600 people in three days, which is a significant proportion in an organization of 2,000 people. In addition, many angry and confused comments can be read on the relevant page of Reddit. In these, Nemcsok’s appointment is attacked from a professional, human and political point of view: in addition to the fact that his career was closely linked to the Orbán governments for more than a decade, many also describe his leadership behavior as toxic and intimidating.
He is famous for his inhumanity
The petition’s signatories reported general employee dissatisfaction, poor working conditions, wages frozen for years, inflexible working hours, which they believe were also indicated in employee satisfaction surveys. The survey also reached our newspaper, and among other things, it was revealed that 89 percent of the text feedback from NFK workers was negative. Many people complained that one of Nemcsok’s first measures was to ban the home office one day a week.
The petition was started by one of NFK’s employees, Luca, who said that he wanted to do something after seeing the “inhumanity and injustices” and the faces of his many distraught colleagues. According to Luca, a large number of employees could not withstand the pressure under Nemcsok and his former head of the secretariat, Krisztina Bicsák, who was appointed director-general of the EFOP-KEHOP-IKOP Management Authority last year, because both of them regularly acted in a fear-mongering manner: this year alone, more than twenty resigned from the NFK. They are afraid that now more professionals may leave the organization, which, according to them, “may endanger the effective use and utilization of EU funds.”
An employee of one of the major governing authorities of the NFK also told us of his anger and disappointment, who said it was incomprehensible that the Tisza government could not find anyone else for the position. He also said that Nemcsok is “famous for his inhumanity”, as are several of the organization’s general directors. “Colleagues are humiliated, ignored, they don’t stand up for them, they only look out for their own well-being.” According to him, the institutions expected after the election that the people of the Orbán system, the department heads and heads of departments, would be replaced, and that a leader with whom they would work smoothly to draw down the EU recovery fund would be at the head of the NFK.
Luca put it even more sharply:
“I can say on behalf of all 1,604 signatories that we voted for Tisza so that we never have to put up with leaders like Nemcs again. With his appointment, we were spit in the face.”
Nemcsok hopes that the matter will come to a rest
We reached Dénes Nemcsok on the phone, who told us that he had heard about the petition, but he said that the ministry should not comment on it, but he will talk to his colleagues soon and hopes that the matter will come to a rest after that. When asked if he would consider resigning, he answered: he certainly does not want to resign because of the termination of the home office. He had only read about the loss of trust and complaints in the petition, he had not personally sought them out, and he still knows little about the results of the employee satisfaction survey.
“I’m glad that they thought that I could solve this problem professionally. I think that if someone can help to get the EU money back to Hungary and is asked to do the job, then he should help,” he said, explaining how surprised he was by the Tisza government’s request. According to Nemcsok, he has more than twenty years of experience in this field, and he didn’t even start his career under the Fidesz government.
Elios case and 420 billion gigatender
Dénes Nemcsok held the position of deputy state secretary in several ministries under the Orbán governments, and at the same time he was the head of the Management Authority (IH) of the priority EU programs EFOP (Human Resources Development Operative Program), KEHOP (Environmental and Energy Efficiency Operative Program) and IKOP (Integrated Transport Development Operative Program). From 2014, during the period under his leadership, there were several significant scandals. Most of István Tiborcz’s Elios contracts were prepared at that time, and the 420 billion water utility and dam construction KEHOP gigatender took place at that time, in which Mészáros és Mészáros Kft. won several orders.
He is connected to Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law In the Elios case years later, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) found such serious irregularities and suspected organized fraud that it recommended the complete withdrawal of HUF 13 billion in EU support from Hungary. THE 420 billion tender and in this case, the EU auditors found that the public procurement tenders were deliberately designed to divide the market between the interests of giant companies close to the government, primarily Lőrinc Mészáros. It also turned out that Butcher’s companies the works in the KEHOP projects were acquired for one and a half times or even multiples of the estimated value.
Regarding the two cases, Dénes Nemcsok said: the Managing Authority did not conduct public procurements, it only decided whether to support a project, and then the funds allocated to the project manager for the realization of the project, and these were checked by the Managing Authority. “We noticed a lot of things, and there may have been some things we didn’t notice, that’s undeniable, because there were a lot of projects going through us. But we tried to verify them as much as our verification tools allowed.” According to him, they had little influence on the procedures of the beneficiaries and were typically only able to examine the documents.
Tisza: Experienced leaders are needed
THE Ruff is responsible for making sure that those kicked out of the door do not climb back through the window in his article entitled a 444 he recently wrote about the fact that the chancellor is responsible for screening applicants for high-ranking government positions from a political point of view. They check that the person applying for the position cannot be linked to the previous system in any way. That is why we sent questions to the Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, Bálint Ruff, and to the Minister of Rural Development, Viktória Lőrincz, as to what justified the appointment of the former deputy state secretary of the Orbán government.
The press department of the Ministry of Rural and Urban Development responded that since one of the most urgent tasks of the Tisza government is to recover HUF 6,000 billion in EU support, this is the primary goal in personnel decisions, and the state secretary managing the institution was chosen accordingly. “We need experienced managers who are well-versed in the operation of the National Development Center and who are able to perform the necessary tasks within the available tight deadlines,” they wrote, and they believe that they count on the dedicated professionals working in the institution for the intensive work required to recover the funds.
Update: After the publication of our article, to our question addressed to Bálint Ruff, Government Communications sent the same answer verbatim that we also received from the press department of the Ministry of Rural and Urban Development and quoted above.
