2012. október 30., kedd

Nationalising... weather forecasting

It has been announced that in future only the state will be allowed to provide public weather forecasting services. The corresponding draft law is already before parliament.

The cited reason is that weather forecasting is a very complicated task requiring special expertise... and... well, therefore hence it should be in the hands of the state. The lawmaker responsible for the draft said in an interview that it has the additional advantage that the public will be sure, whatever channel they use, that the forecast they see is of excellent quality.

Cynics have suggested the step might have to do also with the stated-owned weather forecast organisation's poor financial condition.

2012. október 19., péntek

The undepletable chest of Hungarian absurdities has once again produced a real gem.

I wrote about the government's intention to introduce a mandatory registration procedures for voters. This has been criticised as unnecessary duplication as there exists a perfectly well functioning national voters' list (NB registration exists only in countries where there is no such comprehensive list).

The government did not even care to offer any kind of reasoning to address this duplicity, but now they've got their answer. They plan to abolish the national voters' list. 

Then no one can say that registration is unnecesary, right?

2012. október 16., kedd

New law to enable government to attain confidential data from private companies

A law that is before Parliament will allow the Government Control Office (KEHI) to attain insight into any business documents of private companies in which the state has any stake.

KEHI's task is to control the government and state-owned companies (i.e. with minimum 50%+1 share stake). The law will force private companies with any state share (however small) to provide all and any requested data (including confidential material) to KEHI.

The consequence is that a number of companies listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange will be required to completely open themselves to government inquiries (and, for instance, provide information that even their biggest shareholders would not have access to).

This is because the state has attained - often small - shareholdings in many of these listed firms when the government nationalised the old-age pension system's private pillar. That pillar had been administered by private insurance companies and consisted of bonds and stocks, which were transferred to the state treasury in the course of the expropriation.