On December 10 last year, a representative made a surprising discovery at the meeting of the City Strategy Committee of the Győr General Assembly. The committee chaired by Dávid Fekete from Fidesz was discussing the report of the first three quarters of 2025 of Győr city management company, Győr-Szol Zrt., when Renáta Balog-Farkas, who belongs to the faction of the opposition mayor (Tiszta Szívvel a Várossért, TSZV), spotted something in one of the tables. In the section where HUF 2.1 billion was in December 2024, on September 30, 2025 only HUF 304 million was listed. The representative asked whether, based on this, the operation of Győr-Szol was financed from the housing fund or whether the amount of the credit line was repaid from it.
Photo: Association for the City with a Pure Heart
Péter Sárkány, the president and CEO of Győr-Szol, was sitting in the room, and in response he said that the housing fund does not appear on a separate account, but was included in the company’s entire budget. “The amount of the housing fund is available, and we can provide proof of how much we have spent at any time,” stated the CEO, who also said that they will account to the local government monthly. It is a fact that the housing fund was previously managed in a separate account, but this was abolished around February-March 2025 because it was considered completely unnecessary. And Péter Sárkány rejected the assumption that any loan would have been repaid from this.
Renáta Balog-Farkas didn’t leave it at that. He requested itemized data provision if the housing fund no longer appears as a separate item in the bank deposits. Committee chairman Dávid Fekete showed constructiveness. He asked the representative to prepare a presentation on this matter for next week’s meeting. Balog-Farkas did it.
On December 19, at the next committee meeting, the topic came up again. Péter Sárkány was able to receive the representative’s submission in advance, because he and his colleagues immediately discussed whether the data request – whose deadline is “immediately” – should be considered a Christmas present or a New Year’s Eve surprise. According to him, the itemized data requested represent 2884 bank account statements, which is approximately 37-38 thousand pages; according to another calculation, 60-90 days of overtime, calculated for 2-3 hours per day for five people, due to requests and GDPR cover-ups. “The bank account information does not reveal anything about the roughly HUF 1.8 billion, but it does from the ledger statement,” Péter Sárkány said based on the minutes.
The chairman of Győr-Szol also prepared a four-page summary for the presentation, but until now only the chairman of the committee, Dávid Fekete, has seen it, certainly not Renáta Balog-Farkas, who brought up the topic. The opposition representative himself confirmed this to Telex.
At the same meeting, Renáta Balog-Farkas drew attention to the fact that even if all the money is in one account, according to her, HUFs from the housing fund can only be used “in relation to apartments”. If someone does not do so, then the embezzlement can stop, which for such a value can be imprisonment for up to 5-15 years, explained Balog-Farkas, a lawyer.
Sárkány retaliated by saying that if the opposition representative thinks so, he should file a report with the authorities. Another dispute arose between them about whether anonymization is required by law or not, and the independent representative Péter Hajtó also joined the debate, who also thought that it was unnecessary to “send 40,000 pages covered up”. Dávid Fekete then closed the debate, the committee members voted: 1 yes, 1 no, with 5 abstentions, they did not accept Renáta Balog-Farkas’ proposal on the release of the data.
The Győr-Szol case now grew out of this, which led to mass scenes at the Győr town hall in early February demanding the dissolution of the Fidesz-led general assembly, street demonstrations, and all of this is also related to the fact that the town’s general assembly, which is supposed to adopt Győr’s 2026 budget, could not be convened on several occasions.
Why would they have looked at the housing fund?
Table of Contents
Győr-Szol Zrt. is the city’s company, which officially deals with city operations, but its activities are very versatile, as it was created in 2009 by the merger of four municipal companies. They include the district heating service, the maintenance of public toilets, de-skid removal, the maintenance of playgrounds, fountains, cemeteries, tree care, they manage city parking, operate markets and the fair hall or sports properties.
The company’s activities include real estate management, as well as investment and construction. Part of this is the management and renovation of the rental housing stock in Győr. However, at previous committee meetings, no one really looked at the balance sheet mentioned at the beginning of the article, presumably because the previous mayor of the city, András Csaba Dézsi from Fidesz (2020-2024), stopped the apartment renovations. For this reason, the vacant rental apartments in Győr were not renovated and could not be rented out from 2022.
However, one of the most important commitments of Tiszta Szívvel a Városért (TSZV), which has given the opposition mayor the chance to vote, was to speed up the rental housing program. Thanks to them, it turned out that by 2024, more than three hundred apartments were empty and waiting to be rented out, but due to lack of renovation, they could not give them to the people of Győr. Bencé Pintér announced that they would restart the apartment renovation program, and Győr-Szol’s commitment was to renovate 116 apartments in 2025. The mammoth city management company undertook this in several phases, but it is very unable to keep up the pace: so far, they have only been able to report completion of 22 apartments instead of 116.
While the applications of truly needy applicants had to be rejected due to the lack of rental apartments, in 2025 it was revealed that Imre Antal, the chairman of the finance committee, who plays an important role in the Fidesz-KDNP faction, can rent a municipal – non-social – rental apartment for only HUF 70,000 in addition to his million-dollar representative salary.
Fidesz majority, Fidesz management
For the background of the events, it is important to know the political conditions in Győr. Bence Pintér, the current opposition mayor of the city in 2024, owed his success not least to the fact that he tried to expose the abuses of the Fidesz city administration as a journalist. However, even though he is now the mayor, Fidesz still has a massive majority in the city assembly. The 22-person general assembly in Győr has 14 members of the Fidesz-KDNP faction, Bencé Pintér has five; and three of them – including former Fidesz mayor Zsolt Borkai – take part in the board’s work as independents.
The Fidesz majority also remained in the management and supervision of local government companies. The supervisory board of Győr-Szol has six members, and its chairman is the aforementioned Imre Antal from Fidesz. The Pintérs wanted to send a member to the board, but for the remaining places – with Fidesz votes – independent candidates were voted in, not TSZV members. This is how the Borkais and Fodor Roland’s organization (Civilek for Győr) could delegate one member each to fb. It is also worth knowing that the independent representatives of the Győr General Assembly almost without exception vote together with the Fidesz-KDNP faction, this is also true of the Győr-Szol case so far.
Győr-Szol also has a five-member board of directors. Here, the opposition TSZV succeeded in delegating at least one person, but the board still operates with a strong right-wing bias. Therefore, the city administration has virtually no say in the decisions of Győr-Szol.
How much influence the mayor has on the appointment of company managers in Győr was well exemplified by the change of director of another municipal company, Győr Projekt Kft., which is responsible for the operation of city real estate. This was vetoed by Bence Pintér the first time, but he did not have the means to do it the second time, so the Fidesz majority in the general assembly dismissed the old leader and appointed Eszter Szombati-Serfőző in his place in November 2024. But in the same way, the candidate whom the city administration wanted to head the City Police in 2025 was also voted down.
And then “the affair” broke out
Mayor Bence Pintér announced on February 2nd that he would file a complaint and at the same time initiate the dissolution of the Győr General Assembly, because according to him, almost all of the municipal housing fund managed by Győr-Szol Zrt., amounting to at least HUF 1.7 billion, had indeed disappeared in just 9 months. This was already the fifth denunciation that the opposition city manager announced within a short period of time, but it was this spark that ignited the flame that took shape in the February 20th demonstration, which is considered large by Győr standards.
Of course, the amount itself can explain why this became “the issue” in the eyes of the people of Győr, but the 1.7 billion is much more a symbol of the arrogance with which the governing majority tries to suppress and keep the opposition city government under control since Fidesz failed the mayoral election for the first time since 2006. The issue of the housing fund and the report related to it were louder than the others due to the already mentioned rental housing cases, but the other cases were certainly necessary for the explosion.
An investigation was launched in all three cases, but the handling of these cases was at first as shaken by the ruling party faction as Győr-Szolé: they were all categorized as Bence Pintér’s “mischief” and “stirring of the atmosphere”.
Even though the mayor asked and is still asking for data, he does not receive any answers from the city companies. This may seem absurd elsewhere, but it is the reality in Győr. According to Pintér, “Dávid Fekete’s city strategy committee with a Fidesz majority can instruct company managers (also not to give answers), and in addition, the general assembly installed a Fidesz majority in all boards of directors and supervisory boards”.
The question can rightly be raised as to whether the law allows for this? The answer is yes. According to the lawyer interviewed by Telex, the local government law is embedded in this absurd situation. All that had to be done was to transfer the ownership rights of municipal companies from the mayor to the committees based on a new SMS, breaking the practice of many years in Győr.
After that, the results of the municipal election were mapped in all committees, which is why the Fidesz presidency and a massive right-wing predominance prevail in the city strategy, finance and economic, and human services committees.
Mayor Bence Pintér thus has exactly as many opportunities in Győr as he manages, as a citizen. If you want to get data about the municipality’s companies, you can use a public interest data request.
We know that when Péter Magyar visited Győr last November and negotiated with Bence Pintér, they also talked about closing such loopholes, which the legislators had not thought about before. By the way, Pintér was expecting not only Péter Magyar but also Viktor Orbán for this meeting. On this day, the DPK country tour with the prime minister began in Győr, for which Magyar organized his own general meeting. So the two protagonists of this year’s election were in Győr at the same time, and Bence Pintér offered to provide a venue for their debate. Orbán did not accept the invitation, so neither then nor later did he meet the leader of one of the country’s largest industrial cities. We are talking about the city that will pay more than 13 billion to the state coffers in 2026 as a solidarity contribution.
The way Orbán ignores Pintér also affects the members of the party in Győr, we see the same locally and on a small scale. It is not the opposition mayor who is negotiating with the (government party) ministers and state secretaries, but Dávid Fekete, the leader of the local Fidesz faction, who is running as a parliamentary candidate for his party in the district that mostly includes villages around Győr.
There’s something in the air
For the sake of the operation and transparency of Győr municipal companies, Pintér attempted the impossible and submitted a proposal to the city strategy committee in January 2026. According to the proposal, the committee calls on the senior officials of business companies owned exclusively by local governments to provide the mayor with data on their company’s operation, management, financial situation, contractual relationships and performance of public duties. This is what he achieved:
In the absence of Fidesz’s Dávid Fekete and the independent Péter Hajtó, the Győr City Strategy Committee did not support Bence Pintér’s access to city companies’ data at any time, with abstaining votes – Photo: Bence Pintér/Facebook
His proposal was therefore voted down, and this happened a few days before the wider public could become aware of the Győr-Szol case, that is, Bence Pintér announced the denunciation. At that time, i.e. at the end of January, he “only” wrote that “I had guessed until now, but now I’m sure that something is wrong with the finances of the municipal companies. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, for example, in January 2025, Fidesz kicked out our only delegate, and then replaced him with a Fidesz cadre in the supervisory board of Győr-Szol. We will find out what Dávid Fekete and Fidesz are hiding.”
The ruling Fidesz-KDNP majority launched a counterattack. He announced that he would report and initiate disciplinary action against the mayor, on the one hand, because he “knocked out” the vote of one of the closed meetings, and on the other hand, because of the famous HUF 15,600 parking fine, for which one of the mayor’s colleagues left.
In these circumstances, the complaint was filed on February 2 regarding the “disappearance” of HUF 1.7 billion. The head of the city management company denied this and filed a counter-complaint, but he issued a statement that was so incomprehensible and as long as a short story that the people of Győr only became more suspicious: this money really doesn’t exist.
Because if it were, they could simply point to it, it’s here.
After reading the announcement several times, the phrases and sentences that Péter Sárkány also told Renáta Balog-Farkas at the two December committee meetings came back to me. In other words, the contract does not require the maintenance of a separate bank account or bank deposit, only a separate record and a monthly, comprehensive, general ledger accounting obligation, which “so far the Self-Government of the City of Győr County has not objected even once”.
According to Péter Sárkány, the separate general ledger record and the monthly settlement adequately ensure transparency and control, Győr-Szol Zrt. acts regularly. And the contract is a resources it requires its availability to perform operational tasks, rather than the continuous maintenance of a specific form of funds (e.g. bank deposit).
Pintér handled the public anger and incomprehension well, on the occasion of this he announced for the first time that he would also initiate the dissolution of the assembly, because it could not go on from here, that as mayor he would not even get an insight into such matters. On the other hand, those who can get it (the Fidesz majority) are only assisting the “disappearance of the money”, according to him.
The size of the demonstration on February 20 probably made even the Fidesz faction think, because it served as visible proof of what many assumed, and about which Pintér also made a statement to a local portal. The support of the opposition mayor is certainly greater now than it was when he was elected: “In 2024, we shared roughly 30-30-30 percent with Zsolt Borkai and András Csaba Dézsi, this ratio has moved significantly in my direction. I can say this much,” he referred to a survey last fall. In response to a question, he also revealed that he was measured for almost two-thirds. Therefore, if there were a new election, we can safely risk that not only would Pintér be a very strong candidate for the TSZV now, but his faction would also be larger than the current 5 members in the general assembly.
The majority Fidesz-KDNP faction responded to the dissolution with “Hungarian petrification”, “cleansing” and “bringing the mayor’s secretary to the parliament” (here they aimed at Juditra Diószegi, who is the Tisza candidate in the Győr-Moson-Sopron 1 electoral district). They did not vote to dissolve the general meeting, and at the same general meeting, Péter Sárkány, the president and CEO of Győr-Szol, wanted to hand over the OTP certificate in a Nokia box, according to which there are almost HUF 2.1 billion in the Győr-Szol account. This performance was just fuel to the fire.
Bence Pintér did not accept Péter Sárkány’s Nokia box – Photo: Bence Pintér / Facebook
The president of the company then realized his mistake, apologized and held a press conference to which all journalists working in the city were invited: 24.hu, Óstudujuk and Telex could also be present, which is not usual at all, independent media are usually left out of Fidesz press conferences.
At last week’s press conference, two important things were said, to which the mayor had been waiting for an answer for many days, but he did not receive them. It took questions from the opposition press to reveal:
- of the 2.1 billion forints in the OTP receipt in the Nokia box, 1.8-1.9 billion forints were loans, as Bence Pintér and his deputy mayor, Roland Kósa, assumed;
- and for the “housing fund”, Győr-Szol does not ensure that the amount is always “labeled” there, but considers it important that “if payment has to be made, the appropriate amount is available”.
They say they are squeaky clean
The set of data requested as a public interest data request arrived at Pintérék at the same time as the press conference. According to the mayor, one of the reports confirmed this: when he announced on February 3, the day after the complaint, that HUF 1.7 billion was missing from the housing fund, approximately HUF 2 billion was immediately withdrawn from the credit line. According to Bence Pintér, “based on the documents, it seems that the company supervised by Fidesz spent the money. For now, we are investigating exactly what and how the money was spent.” According to a previous announcement by Győr-Szol, on the other hand, at 8:34 a.m. on January 22, the ledger statement showed HUF 2,168,182,711.
We cannot resolve this contradiction here now, but since an investigation has been launched into the case, sooner or later the authorities will say who is right. The head of Győr-Szol continues to deny that the money has disappeared. He said, “at large companies, the overdraft is part of the net liquidity”.
From the demonstration on February 20, it can be seen that this explanation is not enough for the people of Győr, although it is suspected that few people adjust their bank account balances, credit limit, ledger and liquidity. But apparently that’s not the point anymore. “Where’s the horse?” in fact, the national affairs – Hatvanpuszta, MNB, etc. – its local formation, and the Pintérés now want to set an example by saying that “we will not be a country without consequences”. This is also the reason why the demonstration was called under the slogan “This city is now the country.”
At the general meeting following the demonstration, Pintér would have set not only the discussion of the 2026 budget on the agenda, but also “decisions to be made regarding the Győr-Szol case”. This certainly also played a role in the fact that the general assembly could not be held after several attempts: the Fidesz faction did not go to that or to the next extraordinary general assembly scheduled for two days, claiming that it “does not participate in the trouble”. The next performance is expected on Monday evening at 6:00 p.m., when the general assembly begins, intentionally at a time when interested Győrs can also attend.
Among the items on the agenda, Győr-Szolé is the first, the mayor’s proposal formulates two decision proposals: to issue a public procurement for the vetting of the company, and to prepare for the recall of the president and CEO of Győr-Szol and the chairman of its supervisory board by the next general assembly.
