TBH in Eastern Europe something being owned by government usually means that it's being ran (basically owned) by mafia.

It's just the old commie era thinking. Some people think of the government as a hostile entity. Strangely the same people believe in a strong state acting as a nanny, so they don't have to solve their problems themselves. Hopefully this will heal with time and people start to take responsibility in both their private life and politically.

Wow, there is some really funny shit going on in your head behind that pink goggles of yours? We are trying to deal with that for several years now, still a lot of work to be done. And no - that's not just thinking. Some of those government guys became so insolent that their shady schemes are basically open to public.

No, it isn't. Sorry but this is exactly the kind of "there must be a hidden agenda to this" thinking which skews your reality. Our governments are simply highly incompetent and terribly mismanaged, but not in the hands of organised crime. You can still draw parallels between ANY government and mafia.

Depends on the country, I guess. Come visit Ukraine - there is almost nothing hidden regarding those agendas here. One question, tho - if they are so incompetent and mismanaged, how come they're your government?

Ah, you are from Ukraine. This explains your bitterness. There are differences between Eastern-Europe and Eastern-Europe. Ukraine is in a whole different dimension regarding corruption, than Hungary.

Yeah, you're right, as the guy from Ukraine I'm probably preconceived quite a bit. But as an IT guy, I still do not believe that everything is clear with those 4 years and 9 million euro.

> if they are so incompetent and mismanaged, how come they're your government?

Because we elected them based on their skills in lying rather than governance. And also because government jobs naturally attract and promote incompetence.

Hanlon's Razor - Don't attribute malice to what could just as easily be explained by incompetence.

Turns out there are just a lot of incompetent people.

What do you mean eastern Europe ? This could be said for governments all over the world.

Why does a group of criminals need a subway? As a local guy using the public transport on a daily basis, I highly doubt this.

That pretty easy. Let's say you're a government official who's in charge of a local subway. One of the stations is in need of renovation. You're opening a tender for that and got 3 participants - 2 of them are some independent companies with bids around market price of the work required. Lets say 105 and 107 thousands euro. And the third company belongs to your brother in law and he wants 500 thousand euros for his services. In perfect world such bid won't stand a chance. But, since you're the one responsible for the tender, you can change requirements for the set of documents required for participation like one day before start, making it impossible for other participants to provide documents in time and thus making them unable to participate. So your brother in law wins the tender, sub-contract work to some third party for the market price and you split the rest of the money. And even if you're will be charged with "improper use of municipal funds" you'll be fined with something around 500 euro and will keep your job.

That is what I've meant by saying "basically own" - you can do whatever you want with company and you can't be held responsible for any of your actions.

And that's not just some imaginary scheme - that shit happens on daily basis in most of Eastern Europe countries. I'm from Ukraine and we're trying to fight that shit for several years now.

Not Just former Warsaw pact countries, This is a common form of low level corruption in many companies I was told that in British Telecom it was the most common form on financial misconduct that people got disciplined for.

I see I admit I was naive when I thought we do not play with services that are used by hundreds of thousands of people in the capital. But yeah the same shit happened here, too. We have to pay back part of the EU money we received for Subway 4 (Négyes metró) due to corruption investigated by EU.

To take EU funding, obviously :)

Why do criminals need to be re-elected at election time ?

Hm.. money laundering?

This is simple demagogue populism. This is not a critique of the problems, and does not start any fruitful discussion, and will not lead eventually to better conditions.

Oh, you seem to be using the code words of state-sponsored media pretty well. Demagogue and populism in the same sentence, nice! : )

Lets not pretend that the tenders made by the BKK is any more lawful or fair than the rest of the tenders that dominate the market around here.

Actually that is a critique of a problem. Because one of the biggest problem of Eastern Europe is corruption which leads to many different problems, that eventually result in such stories.

The biggest problem in Eastern Europe is corruption? Citation needed. In the USA you can influence politicians, even elections and it is called lobbying. The result is that roughly 70% of the legislation passed for companies. In Eastern Europe people keep re-electing politicians who are corrupt than it is on the voters not on the corrupt politicians. I think the real issue is exactly that, people cannot use their power (voting) too well and have limited knowledge about the economy so they are easy to fool.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

Yeah, right, because in countries with high corruption level elections are always work as they supposed to.