HUF 50,000,000
Budapest district VIII became certainly so poorer due to Pikó's pocket contracts!
Official: Fifty million fine to be paid to the Pico-led municipality - they have lost the lawsuit!
The termination of a previous contract is not an unforeseen, extraordinary event, the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee confirmed in Annex VIII. district catering.
The amount of the fine imposed in the lawsuit related to public catering in Józsefváros did not change, the Metropolitan Court ruled that all violations were committed by the local government, according to the press release of the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee. As they write, the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee also imposed a fine of fifty million forints in the repeated procedure, which must be paid to the local government headed by András Pikó.
All six infringements were so serious that a reduction was in no way justified.
Urgency on the part of the municipality was not justified
As is well known, the public catering contract was terminated by the municipality of Józsefváros and, citing extreme urgency, it entered into a contract with another service provider. However, as the extreme urgency was not justified, the authority, as in all such cases, initiated an appeal procedure. The matter was brought before the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee, where an infringement was found: the contract was declared void and a fine was imposed.
According to this, a catering contract is in the public interest, but in no way can it be considered to be of paramount importance that would justify the maintenance of an illegal contract. At the same time, the statutory public task of the local government is to provide care. That is, the termination of a previous contract is not an unforeseen, extraordinary event - it was unfounded for the district leadership to refer to it.
Despite all this, the municipality challenged this decision, but the Metropolitan Court did not contest the 6 violations previously found by the Arbitration Committee in violation of the Public Procurement Act. The decision obliged the Arbitration Committee to conduct a new procedure only with regard to the amount of the fine and the justification of the nullity of the contract, the notice states.
There is no justification for reducing the fine
As they write, in its decision of 9 July, the Public Procurement Arbitration Committee ruled, in line with a previous decision of the General Court, that it did not consider a reduction of the fine justified. Thus, contrary to all previous press reports, the left-handed Józsefváros Municipality has to pay the fine of fifty million already imposed.
The contract in question expired on 20 November 2020, which is why the decision does not affect the provision of current catering, the press release adds.
