OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 29, 11 February 1997

HUNGARIAN PREMIER READY TO TESTIFY IN PRIVATIZATION SCANDAL CASE.
Premier Gyula Horn has told the parliament that he is ready to testify
in the privatization scandal case, although he himself is not implicated
in the scandal, Hungarian media reported on 11 February. "I am prepared
to appear before the House committee and to testify," Horn said, adding
that "the guilty must be punished but the insinuations must stop." He
also said that it is in the "vital interest" of politicians to keep
public life "clean." He noted that after the scandal had broken, he
dismissed the top management of the State Privatization and Holding
Company (APV) as well as the minister in charge of privatization. But a
subsequent investigation showed that individuals closely associated with
the two governing parties had pressured a consultant working for the APV
to share her record-high commission. Opposition deputies said that if
the scandal had not been uncovered, the money would have been used for
the 1998 election campaign. -- Zsofia Szilagyi

[As of 12:00 CET]

Compiled by Jan Cleave