"The newest chapter in Hungary’s 'War of Promises or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Election Campaign’ is about BKV tariffs. The Socialist faction in the capital city proposed to slash ticket prices right in half, while main opposition party Fidesz, which is most likely to win a landslide in the April elections, wants to abolish the fare hike due on 1 Febuary.The Budapest MSZP faction has proposed the General Assembly to cut ticket tariffs of the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) by 50% for certain groups, including the retired. Ah yes, the pensioners, all three million of them are the hot ticket in the election promise game.
The retired and those who reached the retirement age would need to pay only half of the current ticket price as of 1 March. But wait a sec. Isn’t BKV to raise its tariffs on 1 February? Anyhow, the Socialists said their proposal - that would be applied to students, as well - would strip the budget of some HUF 400 million this year and about HUF 500 m annually later on. This shortfall, though could be compensated from general reserves of the City’s budget, they claim.
The proposal is to be submitted to the General Assembly on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Fidesz devised its own plan about BKV tariffs. How could it not?
It has announced on Wednesday that it will revoke the tariff hike due on 1 February, to keep prices in 2010 at 2009 levels. The party says the company "has no moral grounds to raise the price of passes and tickets," referring to corruption cases that keep popping up at BKV, the decrepit state of the company’s vehicle fleet and a recently held strike that paralysed the capital city for six days."
Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal
28.01.2010