site.btaParliamentary Ad Hoc Committee to Revise Report on Probe of CEZ Deal to Be Able to Adopt It by Consensus, Chairman Says They Were Unable to Do Their Job

Sofia, May 8 (BTA) - A parliamentary ad hoc committee probing the intended sale of the Bulgarian business of Czech energy group CEZ has decided to postpone the adoption of a report on its probe and revise it so that all committee members are happy with the wording - hopefully by May 10. Following a meeting of the committee, its chair, Zhelyu Boychev, complained that they were denied information about the financing of the deal and did not get the cooperation they sought - and said the ad hoc committee was essentially unable to do its job.

CEZ's announcement earlier in the year that it had decided to sell its Bulgarian electricity distribution business to an obscure local company, Pazardjik-based Inercom Bulgaria, wholly owned by Ginka Vurbakova, triggered a political turmoil in this country. The government initially said it wanted to be involved in the deal but subsequently reconsidered. In mid-March Parliament set up an ad hoc committee to look into the details of the intended deal, including the origin of funding that the buyer would use.

While the selling price of the assets has not been formally disclosed, media reports set it at 342.5 million euro.

Zhelyu Boychev said the ad hoc committee saw, as tried to probe the CEZ deal, constitutional principles "being trampled". He said that he is concerned about the way some Bulgarian institutions work after he saw how they handled the CEZ deal, and this deal showed weaknesses in many state institutions.

He said one of the recommendations of the committee is for strengthening the administrative and expert capacity of the energy regulator so that it is able to verify declared investments not only on paper but on-site as such investments impact the price of electricity.

"The main conclusion made by the ad hoc committee is that many questions remained unanswered," said Boychev.

"It remains unclear how a company of such [small] scale and volume of assets can acquire such a strategic business [as CEZ's in Bulgaria]," he said.

The ad hoc committee has already extended once the due date for a report and it is now expected to be released on May 10.

During the Tuesday meeting of the ad hoc committee MP Valentin Nikolov (GERB) said some conclusions in the report showed a political bias and needed to be revised to make sure the report is adopted by consensus.

The representatives of the United Patriots and the Socialists agreed with that.

A new working group was set up to revise the report, and it is meeting on May 9 so that it be ready with the revised report on May 10 when it is due.