site.btaSofia City Council's Economy Committee Adopt Report on Management Change of Six Municipal Companies

On Wednesday, Sofia City Council's standing committee on economy, property and digital transformation adopted a report on replacing the management of six municipal companies, including Metropolitan. The changes still need to be accepted by Sofia City Council at its meeting on Thursday.

The report by independent municipal councilors Sevdelina Petrova and Krasimir Galabov, and VMRO - Bulgarian National Movement municipal councilor Carlos Contrera, is about announcing a public election of members of the board of directors and supervisory boards of Toplofikasia Sofia, Urban Mobility Centre, Stolichen Avtotransport, Stolichen Elektrotransport, Metropolitan, Sofinvest.

Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev said at an extraordinary briefing that the replacement of Stoyan Bratoev, who has been the head of Metropolitan since 1999, is an attack on the people of Sofia. Terziev said he was outraged, shocked and angry. He called the report on the most important companies in the city a hasty push to replace 30 people. He questioned where did the new replacements come from, what are their qualifications that make them suitable for managing a BGN 3 billion resource. "Where are the standards by which we decide that we remove some of the best managers and teams, and keep others that do not do so well" Terziev argued. 

Before the meeting, Contrera accused Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) (Save Sofia) of inaction regarding the six municipal companies. He argued that CC-DB proposed "extravagant criteria" for selection and to ensure no any changes the current composition of the boards of the companies.

At a press conference on July 8, Sofia Municipality municipal councilors from CC-DB (Save Sofia" said that they had prepared reports for the election of managers of six main municipal commercial companies, which currently do not have a manager, new criteria and rules. "We are talking about the municipal companies whose mandate has expired. With these competitions, we want to show a new way of managing our city and ensure transparent procedures, for which we have set clear points,"  municipal councilors  Boyko Dimitrov said then.