László Domokos, President of the State Audit Office of Hungary handed over this year’s SOLIDUS Awards at the opening conference of the 5th International Integrity Seminar. This year the award, which was founded in 2016, was given to Dr. Tünde Handó, President of the National Office for the Judiciary and Mária Makkai, Supervisory Manager of SAO. When praising the winners, Tihamér Warvasovszky, Vice President of the SAO, reminded the audience of the fact that the award recognises the work of people who, through outstanding activity, have contributed to accomplishing the SAO’s objectives, performing and developing its activities, fulfilling its constitutional role and enhancing its social recognition.
On December 13, 2011, Dr. Tünde Handó was elected as President of the National Office for the Judiciary by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly. As the head of the body responsible for the central administration of the courts, she greatly contributed to the promotion and strengthening of the culture of integrity in Hungary.
On 18 November 2011, the Minister of Public Administration and Justice, the President of the State Audit Office of Hungary, the President of the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor General signed a joint statement “on the cooperation of public bodies in the fight against corruption”. In 2012 - after the establishment of NOJ - Dr. Tünde Handó also joined the declaration, expressing her commitment to disseminating the culture of integrity. The National Office for the Judiciary is an active member of this cooperation that is unique even by international standards, and hosted the annual meeting in 2017.
The President of the NOJ urged the participation of the judiciary to the greatest extent possible in the SAO's Integrity Survey, thanks to which – underlining the NOJ's anti-corruption commitment – all the courts participated in the surveys.
Dr. Tünde Handó established a judicial integrity working group in 2012, and initiated the creation of a Code of Ethics for the courts, which entered into force in January 2015, following its adoption by the National Judicial Council. Following the integrity survey recommended among the judges graduated in 2015, she also prepared the full integrity map of the judicial organisation and contributed to the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Program, adopted by the government decision of 17 May 2015. Subsequently, in May 2016, the National Office for the Judiciary issued the integrity policy of courts in a presidential order and initiated the organisation of several events on integrity, also speaking at several.
Mária Makkai graduated from the Faculty of Finance at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences and she has been a chartered accountant for nearly two decades. She started her professional career at the taxation group of the Gönc Village Council, and then worked at the District V Branch of the National Savings Bank and later at the Ministry of Finance. Following the regime change, she moved to the newly formed State Audit Office of Hungary. She is one of the first employees of the SAO, a role model of professional loyalty and commitment.
From 2000, she served as senior counsellor head of department, supervising the audits of privatisation transactions and reviewing the activities of financial institutions. She was been appointed assistant director of audit in 2002, responsible for supervising financial institution and public investment audits. Since 1 August 2011, as Director of Audit and Supervisory Manager, she has had a key role in the implementation of the SAO's strategic objectives at all stages of audit activity. As Head of the SAO’s Methodological Working Group, she pays particular attention to the development of the SAO’s methodology.
Over the past 28 years, Mária Makkai has supervised and managed successful audits in many areas of public finances, of which the audits in the field of the management of public and local government assets stand out. In addition, she has taken on a leading professional role in the implementation of comprehensive and professionally complex tasks such as the audit of the preparation and implementation of the Metro Line 4 investment project in 2009-2010, or the audit of the investments made in the PPP scheme. Through these audits, she not only enhanced the reputation of the SAO, but also contributed significantly to the mitigation of national economy risks. In 2017, she supervised the audit of execution of the central budget as a Supervisory Manager, which is the largest audit task of the SAO each year.
This year marked the third time the Solidus Awards were handed out. In 2016 the recognition went to Austrian SAI President and INTOSAI Secretary General Josef Moser as well as SAO Director Gyula Pulay; the 2017 recipients were judge of the Court of Auditors of Portugal Helena Abreu Lopes and Supervisory Manager of the SAO Dr. Margit Horváth.
