Financial Risk:

Moderate

Score:

50/100

Asset Disposals

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Q24 67/100

How effective are controls over the disposal of assets, and is information on these disposals, and the proceeds of their sale, transparent?

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Controls Score: 100 / 100
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has a database on the assets and distribution of military surplus, managed by a department that is responsible for…
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Transparency of disposal process Score: 25 / 100
Information on planned disposals is not always published on the ministry’s website. Navigation on the website is extremely difficult, it does not follow logically…
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Transparency of financial results of disposals Score: 75 / 100
Financial results of the public procurement notices are publicly available on the website of the HM EI Zrt, that is responsible for selling assets…
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Q25 25/100

Is independent and transparent scrutiny of asset disposals conducted by defence establishments, and are the reports of such scrutiny publicly available?

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Scrutiny Score: 25 / 100
Formally, the Supreme Audit institution scrutinised disposal audits; However, in practice, there is no independent scrutiny of asset disposals. There is an internal auditing…
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Independence Score: 50 / 100
Most of the equipment of the Hungarian Army could be disposed of any time, but the actual lists of disposal were often influenced politically…
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Transparency Score: 0 / 100
The reports of the commitee are not classified. However, they are not available to the public [1].
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Secret Budgets

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Q26 0/100

What percentage of defence and security expenditure in the budget year is dedicated to spending on secret items relating to national security and the intelligence services?

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Score: 0 / 100
Before 2017 the share of secret items was minimal, less than one per cent [1]. However, there’s subsequently been a turning point in terms…
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Q27 25/100

Is the legislature (or the appropriate legislative committee or members of the legislature) given full information for the budget year on the spending of all secret items relating to national security and military intelligence?

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Score: 25 / 100
The competent committees of the parliament are given provided with information on all spending related to national security and military intelligence [1]. This takes…
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Q28 75/100

Are audit reports of the annual accounts of the security sector (the military and intelligence services) subject to parliamentary debate?

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Comprehensiveness Score: 75 / 100
Generally speaking, the audit report of the military intelligence service is comprehensive and transparent, it is debated at the competent committees of the parliament.…
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Parliamentary scrutiny Score: 75 / 100
The related committees of parliament (Committee on Defence and Law Enforcement and Committee on National Security) discuss the audit reports of the annual account…
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Q29 67/100

In law, are off-budget military expenditures permitted, and if so, are they exceptional occurrences that are well-controlled? In practice, are there any off-budget military expenditures? If so, does evidence suggest this involves illicit economic activity?

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Permitted exceptions Score: 50 / 100
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) might ask for amendments regarding its budget, but it needs governmental approval. The government tries to plan every military…
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Recording mechanisms Score: 50 / 100
Military-related expenditure occurring outside of the defence budget is well-recorded for the most part. The main exceptions consist of costs financed not from the…
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Prevalence Score: 100 / 100
Off-budget military expenditures have generally been very rare, both in terms of value and occurrence [1]. However, in line with the significant increase of…
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Q30 25/100

Are mechanisms for accessing information from the defence sector effective?

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Legal framework Score: 50 / 100
There is an existing legal framework, but it is not complete. The framework does not describe well what information is and is not available.…
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Classification of information Score: NS / 100
This indicator is not assigned a score in the GDI. There is an existing framework including the Law on Hungarian Armed Forces (2011. évi…
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Effectiveness Score: 0 / 100
As a result of the overclassification, the public rarely accesses relevant information or full information. Important information covered by the CXIII/2011 law can be…
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Q31 50/100

Do national defence and security institutions have beneficial ownership of commercial businesses? If so, how transparent are details of the operations and finances of such businesses?

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Extent of commercial ventures Score: 50 / 100
The commercial businesses of the MoD (executing disposal, modernisation and providing several logistical services) constitute more than one per cent of the defence budget…
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Transparency Score: 50 / 100
The operation of the companies owned by the ministry is audited by the ministry [1] and the Supreme Audit Office [2, 3]. Results of…
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Military-owned Businesses

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Q32 50/100

Are military-owned businesses subject to transparent independent scrutiny at a recognised international standard?

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Independent scrutiny Score: 50 / 100
The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) audits companies [1, 2], but they are not a fully independent organisation at a recognised international standard. External auditors…
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Transparency Score: 50 / 100
Supreme Audit Office reports are available online [1, 2]. However, there is no information about how often the SAO audits these companies. There is…
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Illegal Private Enterprise

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Q33 100/100

Is there evidence of unauthorised private enterprise by military or other defence ministry employees? If so, what is the government’s reaction to such enterprise?

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Prohibition Score: 100 / 100
According to the Law on Military Personnel, military employees are not allowed to have an additional job or enter into private enterprise without prior…
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Prevalence Score: 100 / 100
No information was found in the media in the last 20 years on the participation of active military personnel and defence ministry employees in…
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Actual Military Spending

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Q77 63/100

Is comprehensive data on actual spending on defence published during the budget year?

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Proactive publication Score: 75 / 100
The Hungarian State Treasury, the central budget agency under the direction of the Ministry for National Economy, proactively publishes monthly reports on actual defence…
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Comprehensiveness Score: 75 / 100
The reports published by the Treasury Ministry are divided according to the several Ministry of Defence (MoD) sub-programmes (“Ministry of Defence”, “Hungarian Defence Forces”,…
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Timeliness Score: 100 / 100
Details of actual spending are published every month.
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Comparison against budget Score: 0 / 100
Variance between planned and actual spending for 2019 has been negligible (0.7 percent) [1]. There is no indication that variances are explained [1].
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