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NATIONAL INFORMATION CENTRE: US NGO PAID OPPOSITION PARTY LARGER SUM THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

 

Action for Democracy, an American NGO, sent the opposition Everyone’s Hungary Movement and associated organisations and businesses over 3 billion forints (EUR 7.6m), a higher sum than previously thought, according to the National Information Centre (NIK). The website of parliament’s national security committee on Wednesday released transcript of evidence given by NIK head Brigadier-General Zoltán András Kovács suggesting that the total amount of funding provided by the American organisation was 3.174 billion forints, around 160 million more than previously stated. This funding was on top of funding from other sources totalling 1.1 billion, 900 million forints of which came from a Swiss foundation “with the same aims” as the American NGO, according to the transcript. Foreign financial funding sent to Hungary exceeded 4 billion forints, it added, with various political analysts and marketing specialists the ultimate beneficiaries among others.