Integrity Authority

Capital investment at 37.7% of total budget is anomalous for an institution entering its fourth year of operation. Two interpretations are possible: productivity-raising investment in AI-assisted procurement analytics and data pipelines — which would be well-founded — or prestige facilities expenditure disconnected from investigative capacity. No published itemised capital plan allows independent assessment. A nominal freeze at 5,374.2 millió Ft is appropriate pending publication of a disaggregated capital plan in the 2026 annual parliamentary report.

Anti-corruption oversight of EU fund allocation is a high-return institutional function: every forint of monitoring capacity catches rent-extraction losses many times larger. The Authority grew from 3 staff in 2022 to 98 by mid-2024, investigating cases covering over 13 billion HUF of EU funding in 2024 alone. Sustaining that professional capacity — economists, lawyers, procurement specialists — is defensible on straightforward institutional-economics grounds. The governance concern is about nomination independence, which is an argument for reform, not for reducing the wage bill.

Operating costs at 41% of the payroll base cover case management systems, AI-assisted procurement monitoring, external expert fees, and office infrastructure. Twenty-five investigations were opened in 2024 covering over 13 billion HUF of EU funds; the operational infrastructure supporting that caseload has a legitimate claim on resources. However, the Authority currently cannot impose sanctions or compel prosecution — only recommend and temporarily suspend. A nominal freeze at 3,667.2 millió Ft holds costs flat while the governance question of expanded powers is resolved.

Employer social contributions are mechanically linked to the personnel base at the statutory szociális hozzájárulási adó rate and are not independently classifiable. The Keep classification on personnel governs this item automatically. No separate policy choice is made here; the ratio of 662.0 millió Ft to the 4,534.8 millió Ft wage bill is consistent with prevailing public-sector contribution rates. No separate intervention is warranted or analytically meaningful.