site.btaMajority in Parliament Rejects Establishment of Ad-hoc Committee to Probe Road Construction

Majority in Parliament Rejects Establishment of Ad-hoc Committee to Probe Road Construction

Sofia, May 3 (BTA) - The majority in Parliament Wednesday rejected BSP for Bulgaria's proposal to establish an ad-hoc committee for finding omissions and violations in the work of the Road Infrastructure Agency and its predecessor, the National Company Strategic Infrastructure Projects, related to the execution and implementation of procedures on the construction of roads and motorways.

A total of 93 MPs voted in favour, 101 against and 25 abstained.

According to the Socialists, the committee's purpose is to find out who bears the political responsibility and have laws drafted in a way that prevents future violations.

GERB said that establishing such a committee would be inexpedient, demanding that the competent bodies be left to do their job, instead of having Parliament turned into "a burlaw court".

The discussions in Parliament touched on various topics, including the length of motorways built,the suspended EU funds during the Oresharski and Borissov 2 cabinets, the upcoming Bulgarian EU Presidency.

Kiril Dobrev of BSP for Bulgaria recalled that a year ago, the Socialists asked the then minister Liliyana Pavlova how a single company comes up with a package of public procurements for over a billion leva in just a few months.

According to GERB Floor Leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov, BSP is trying to use to committee to bring attention to itself and to divert it from losing the Parliamentary elections. He recalled that the EC had suspended EU funds for the Oresharski Cabinet, while GERB managed to recover them. "We managed in building these 300 km of motorways with European money and not with the money of Bulgarian taxpayers," Tsvetanov noted.

Commenting the establishment of the ad-hoc committee, Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova mentioned the name of the southwestern town of Simitli and the confession of a contractor about how GERB is building motorways, without getting into further details. She also recalled that payments were suspended under the science programme during the last regular government.

Volya leader Vesselin Mareshki proposed the establishment of a single ad-hoc committee which can examine Bulgaria's whole transition period to democracy, including health care, education, the pension system.