Sir,
As someone who always reads Euromoney with great interest, I was
pleased to see an article about privatization in Hungary in the
April 2003 issue. I was however disappointed in some aspects of its
content, which do not reflect the full circumstances around recent
privatization tenders in Hungary.
To be complete, I feel that the article should have mentioned
two facts.
First, only two consortia put in bids for the FHB tender but one
of them was later disqualified. We would like the international
media to be aware that the APVrt [the privatization agency]
considered this to be a very difficult situation, knowing that
Concorde would then be represented in the selected consortia for
both the Postabank and FHB transactions. We could indeed have
cancelled the FHB tender and seriously considered doing so, but the
priority for the board of directors of APVrt was rightly to move
ahead with privatization without delay.
Second, there appears to be an implication that the tender audit
conducted by the state audit office was ordered by the finance
minister, my immediate superior, because of his doubts about the
procedure. I can assure you on his behalf that this was not the
case and that he ordered the audit precisely because he was fully
confident in the conduct of the tender and wished to demonstrate
with full transparency to some elements of the media.
It is also worth pointing out here that the implication that the
Hungarian government wishes to use exclusively Hungarian advisers
is inconsistent with the role of CAIB, which is of course an
Austrian bank by origin.
I hope that Euromoney may return to the subject of Hungarian
privatization in future. The minister and I would always be very
happy to discuss this issue with your magazine in more detail and
look forward to meeting your correspondents when they may be in
Budapest.
István Salgó
Deputy state secretary of finance