Ferenc Kovács

Under Ferenc Kovács, Fidesz mayor of Nyíregyháza since 2010, a 2015 Átlátszó investigation found that EU-funded municipal developments routinely billed construction materials at triple market prices — for example, benches worth HUF 85,000 were invoiced at HUF 311,000, and street lamps worth HUF 7,500 at HUF 637,000 — while the construction sites relied on mass undeclared labor, with workers paid roughly HUF 5,000 in cash per day, often without even knowing which subcontractor employed them. In March 2016, Átlátszó also documented that "on February 3rd, a previously unseen luxury Audi appeared in the mayoral office's parking lot," driven by the mayor's own chauffeur — the formal public-procurement tender for a new mayoral vehicle was only launched a week later, ultimately buying the same model for HUF 9.48 million. Together, the cases document a pattern in which the accounting of EU development funds and city procurement decisions preceded or bypassed the official procedural framework meant to govern them.