site.btaBSP, MRF Accuse GERB of 'Diverting Public Attention from Corruption Scandals within Government'

Sofia, August 15 (BTA) - In separate statements the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) accused the ruling GERB Party of "diverting the attention from the corruption scandals within the Government through the case of Tsankov Kamuk dam. BSP leader Kornelia Ninova threatened to sue those who try to connect her to the project, while the MRF deny allegations that the party's Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan has received payment as consultant on the project.

GERB MPs Monday submitted an alert to the Prosecutor General describing the case of Tsankov Kamuk dam. Dessislava Atanassova explained that the investment in the structure is so large that there cannot be returns on it for centuries. Construction-related problems allegedly required repairs just seven years after it was built.

BSP leader Ninova recalled that the project was implemented in line with an agreement between Bulgaria and Austria and the latter shared in the financing. She will alert the Austrian Government and will file a court claim against anyone who tries to connect her name to the project, the BSP Press Centre said.

"In an effort to stifle corruption scandals, in the recent days Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and GERB MPs allege that the Tsankov Kamuk project started while I was a deputy minister and that I am involved with it. Both allegations are false," said Ninova. She also says that the project was launched under the government of Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Cobrug-Gotha in 2001 and that she has nothing to do with it as she was a deputy minister in another government in the 2005-2007 period.

Ninova has sent a letter to the Austrian Ambassador asking him to inform the Austrian Government and the Austrian prosecution authority that Bulgarian Prime Minister Borissov defines the Tsankov Kamuk project as corruption project. "In this way he involves Austria into a corruption scandal," Ninova commented.

The BSP leader pointed to details of the contracts between Bulgaria and Austria. In 2004, an agreement was signed with Verbundplan GmbH to develop a work design and exercise supervision during construction. The construction was carried out by a consortium of three Austrian companies. "I ask the Austrian side to check the allegation of the Bulgarian Prime Minister and pronounce itself on a possible involvement of Austrian companies in corruption deals in Bulgaria," Ninova noted.

In a separate position the MRF says that their Honorary Chair Dogan is not and should not be linked to the Tsankov Kamuk project. He has never been a consultant on this project and should not be associated with any other speculative allegations either.

According to the MRF, "we have witnessed an attempt to divert the public opinion from the corruption scandals and the incumbents' helplessness and lack of competence that characterized the first 100 days of the government's tenure".

According to media publications of 2010, Dogan received a fee of 1.5 million leva as a consultant on four megaprojects: Tsankov Kamuk, Dospat, Gorna Arda Cascade and Toundja Dam. The payment of the fee was arranged under a contract on consultancy services between Dogan and the Mining Institute through Monstry Holding in January 2008. At that time Dogan and the MRF did not deny these allegations. In August 2010 the Commission for Fighting Corruption and Conflict of Interests and Parliamentary Ethics petitioned the Supreme Administrative Court on Dogan's involvement in a possible conflict of interests and the Court came up with an opinion that Dogan was not in a position of a conflict of interests during the signing of the contract.

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There is no cracks in the structure of the Tsankov Kamuk dam and the people are not threatened, Energy Minister Temenouzhka Petkova told journalists. She was speaking at a news conference on the key priorities of the Government's Tenure Programme in the Energy Sector. An incidental overhaul of the facility's geomembrane and a scheduled one of the bed of the Gashtnya River are ongoing at present, Petkova explained.