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“Die Presse”: Zach’s Donation Scandal
New accusations by Martin around money for Hungarian Parties
By Martin Fritzl (Die Presse) Sept. 22nd 2006
Zach has been denying: he was not concerned with his company’s Hungarian projects and he did not know at all what the projects were all about. According to him, the only payment there has ever been, was a payment to the Hungarian Liberals amounting to a maximum of 200.000 Euro.
“Die Presse” however is in possession of a newly surfaced fax which sheds a different light onto the matter: Alexander Zach, until 2005 co-owner and director of Eurocontact, personally billed Strabag for project M5.
A Eurocontact internal “memo” shows that project M5 was not the only project in which Eurocontact collaborated with Strabag. Other projects mentioned are inter alia “Highways” with commission amount to 6,7 millions Euros and a hospital earning 885.000 Euros.
At least some parts of the money were obviously designated for Hungarian parties. The memo mentions Mr. “Puch” who was “displeased” and wanted “to re-route the money.” Mr. Puch seems to be Lazlo Puch, the then-treasurer of the Hungarian socialistic party. The solution in the memo: to tell Puch that the Strabarg should pay the money via Eurocontact and take advantage of the long-established relationship of trust and confidence, this should guarantee that the matter could be handled “plausible and authentic”.
Further the memo read that “Additionally we offer the opportunity to donate parts of the money directly to the political parties”. The memo includes considerations on the technicalities of the money transfer to the parties: e.g “which connections does Strabag have?” “Where can we be paid by Strabag? Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia?” Another question raised is on whether or not a company in a tax haven should be named beneficiary for the commission payment?
This donation scandal is of relevance in Austria as well as in Hungary. Some Hungarian newspapers and parties of the opposition have shown a keen interest in the matter of the money transfer surrounding the project of Highway M5. This project was originally initiated as a public-private-partnership, financed by a toll-system. In 2004 the Hungarian government refrained from the toll-system and included the highway in the road-tax-disc-system. At the time that the commission was due to be paid to Eurocontact, the Hungarian government also bought shares of the parent company.
In Austria the matter concerns the well-known Hans-Peter Haselsteiner: Co-owner and president of the board of Strabag and former left-wing politician. And Alexander Zach, the present chairman of the LIF, is currently running for the SPÖ.
Hans-Peter Martin encourages Zach to provide full disclosure for the money. Haselsteiner is asked to disclose whether or not money was given to the SPÖ.