Audit office welcomes review findings outlining low risk of graft at local councils

Audit office ASZ assessed the anti-graft activities of 3,197 local councils and 1,284 local council offices using a new digital system, Laszlo Domokos told the online edition of business daily Vilaggazdasag.

The review found risks of corruption at 1,330 local councils, most of which took immediate action to remedy any potential for irregularities, Domokos said. In the end, ASZ had to issue warnings to just 202 local authorities, or just over 6 percent of Hungary’s localities, he added.

Some 820 localities had all their operations in order, Domokos said, adding that the local councils had received an average grade of 4.3 on a scale of 1-5. The country’s local councils are increasingly more protected against corruption, he said.

Domokos said that ASZ in the past had reviewed 700-800 organisations a year. “We’re capable of reviewing ten times as many, so we can say that we can assess every organisation using public funds every four years,” he said.

Such a broad and active public finance monitoring system is rare even in the European Union, he said.