EU-tender winners published in “administrative error”, NFÜ claims

The National Development Agency (NFÜ), which distributes EU funds, has cancelled planned subsidies for photovoltaic (PV) solar power plants after atlatszo.hu revealed that they were excessive.

The direct investment subsidy that the NFÜ had said would cover 60-70% of the costs of building PV plants would in fact have paid for them almost entirely, with little or no further private investment needed, atlatszo.hu surmised from tender documents obtained by a freedom of information request.

NFÜ head János Lázár claimed that the tender winners had been released due to an “administrative error” and said the money will be re-allocated to “nursery school repairs”.

Atlatszo.hu is awaiting answers from the NFÜ explaining why the suspicious tenders were not investigated earlier and when the agency had planned to approve and announce the winners in a transparent way.

The original Hungarian language article was posted on 10 October 2013. The text was translated by atlatszo.hu volunteers.