site.btaEducation Minister Denkov: Documents Missing for Close to Lv 8 Mln Paid by Ministry for Student Recreation

October 18 (BTA) - Caretaker Education and Science
Minister Nikolai Denkov said during a press conference here on
Monday that there are no documents or registrations for almost 8
 million leva paid by the Ministry for students camps at the
Student Recreation and Sports EAD's facilities for a period of
two years. The company, which is owned by the Ministry, cannot
provide evidence for close to 293,000 nights, which it claims
were spent by students and for which the Ministry has paid. The
findings were established by an internal audit at the Ministry
conducted over the past four months.

According to a contract signed between the Ministry and the
company, which entered into force in July of 2019 and is valid
until July of 2022, the company was supposed to  organize the
recreation of at least 48,258 students and at least 482,598
nights spent at at least 30 facilities. The Ministry pays the
bulk of the costs and the students cover the rest.

Student Recreation and Sports EAD has asked the Ministry to pay
9,110,494.62  for 299,097 nights spent by students between July
2, 2019 and June 30, 2021. The audits did not find any documents
 proving that the students have paid their share. There are no
paper or electronic registers for the children that were
supposed to be accomodated. The single tourism information
system, where under the Tourism Act all tourists have to be
registered, including students, shows that only 6,116 nights
were spent by students at the company's facilities during the
period in question. The Ministry owes just 186,293.36 leva for
these nights.

After the Ministry conducted its first audit in August of this
year, the company's management admitted to wrongfully reporting
accomodations with 37,009 nights spent, which were supposedly
transferred from previous years. There are no documents to back
this statement, however. The company has reimbursed the Ministry
 1 million leva, but it is not clear where the remaining
7,924,201.26 leva are, Denkov said.

He noted that surprise checks conducted this summer by his
Ministry across 18 recreation facilities run by the company have
 established thousands of fictitious nights spent at completely
unusable facilities, for which the company has requested and
received money from the Ministry.

The fictitious financial results of the company have been used
as an argument to increase the wages of its top management. The
company's CEO was getting a monthly wage of 10,370 leva in the
first quarter of 2020, which was subsequently increased by
another 975 leva.

Minister Denkov said he will alert the Prosecutor General and
the Public Financial Inspection Agency about the fraud, which,
according to the Education Ministry's audit,  was committed by
the company's management. RY/MY

 

/МЙ/