The PM’s new press officer’s construction company earned a fortune from exclusive tenders

János Máté took over from Bertalan Havasi in March and has since been in charge of Viktor Orbán’s press affairs. Although Máté has not been in the spotlight, he has been working at the Prime Minister’s Office since 2013 and was appointed State Secretary in 2022. The prime minister’s new press chief is a co-owner of a Kondoros-based company, which, according to Transparency International (TI) Hungary, won hundreds of millions of HUFs through a few invitation-only public procurement tenders.

The Government Information Centre announced on 14 February that , long-time chief press officer of the Prime Minister will leave his post. The mantle of ’State Secretary in charge of the Prime Minister’s Programme Office’ has been taken over by a relatively unknown official, János Máté. The  has the 37-year old Máté started working at the Prime Minister’s Office in 2013 and has been Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Prime Minister’s Office since 2018. In 2022, he was appointed State Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office’s Programme Office.

HVG previously reported that the new press chief not only organised Viktor Orbán’s important trips abroad, but often accompanied him on them. The paper also reported that Máté owns several agricultural properties in Kondoros, Békés county, and is a co-owner of a company, Épcenter Épitőipari és Kereskedelmi Kft. The latter’s name also appeared in analysis by Transparency International (TI) titled ’Hungary’s Tender Champions’. TI pointed out that the company, which is partly owned by János Máté, won a total of HUF 394 million in four public procurement tenders tilted in their favor.

We therefore took a closer look at Épcenter Kft. and found that

the company has won almost all of its public contracts through invitation-only tenders.

As we have pointed out several times before, the essence of the exclusive public procurment procedure, i.e. the type of procedure under Article 115 of the Public Procurement Regulation, is that only select companies can bid. As this is a highly restrictive method, it is only applicable to works under HUF 300 million. However, tenders under Article 115 of the Kbt are a hotbed of corruption.

Friendly competiton

We examined a total of 30 tenders won by Épcenter Kft. since János Máté joined the Prime Minister’s Office.

In most of the procedures, only 2 or 3 bids competed (in the case of invitations to tender, five companies have to be invited), and the competitors were mostly the same companies: the “HARTMANN” Construction Services and Trade Ltd, Békés-Vill Trade and Service Ltd., GALÉRIA INVEST Construction and Trade Ltd., less frequently HUNÚT Construction Service Ltd., Pro-Békés Trade and Service Ltd. and PROSZERV Engineering and Service Ltd.

Épcenter Ltd. always closely matched the prices estimated by the tenderer, but there were also procedures where it hit the price almost to the nearest forint: the Municipality of Kétegyháza Nagyközség estimated the extension and modernisation of the day care facility for the elderly at 51 387 325 HUFs, and Épcenter Ltd. won with a bid of 51 383 686 HUFs.

The majority of the investments awarded to the company were funded by the EU.

Épcenter Ltd., Kondoros, was founded in 1991 with 18 employees. The owners are Árpád Kurucz, Gyula Kurucz, János Máté and Viktor Máté. The company’s annual revenue fell from €752 million in 2020 to €450 million by the end of 2023. This may be partly due to the fact that the company has not won any public procurement since 2022 (interestingly, János Máté was appointed State Secretary in 2022).

Profit after tax (red) and net sales revenue (gray) of Épcenter Ltd.

We asked the the construction company what they thought about the phenomena we have seen. We received the following response from the company:

“Our company has been a small building and civil engineering contractor since 1991. Our publicly available accounts show that our turnover has decreased and stagnated over the last 15 years. The majority of our turnover, 57% on average, has been generated from market orders in recent years. The remainder of our turnover has been generated by works tendered through open and restricted tenders. After the death of his father, János Máté became a 25% shareholder of our company in 2009, through inheritance. He has not participated in the company’s activities since then and has not realised any benefits from his career as a civil servant. This should be obvious to you, given the publicly available company accounts and profit and loss accounts. We consider this to be the end of the matter concerning our ownership and management. Should the editorial staff of atlatszo.hu need structural or civil engineering services in Békés county, please contact our company with confidence.”