site.btaGERB Leader Offers Support for Solving Sofia's Waste Crisis

GERB leader Boyko Borissov Wednesday suggested that Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev should propose an emergency law citing a disaster, environmental pollution, or an environmental catastrophe - whatever. "I suggest that he tell us how he wants to cope with the bin crisis," he said.

If Terziev comes up with a solution now, GERB-UDF's 66 MPs will back him, no matter if waste collection costs BGN 100 million or 200 million per tonne or a public procurement procedure has to be skipped, said Borissov.

Two large Sofia boroughs, Lyulin and Krasno Selo, have had overflowing bins for a few days now because no company has been contracted to collect waste.

Borissov said he was not extending his hand to Terziev, but to the people of Sofia, because they were not to blame.

Commenting on Terziev's statement that he would not be paying the mafia BGN 400 per tonne for waste collection, Borissov asked: "What mafia is he fighting? He has been paying them for two years now."

Terziev was elected mayor in 2023.

A few months ago, a procedure was launched to select companies for waste collection in several parts of the capital. A Turkish company which bid for a contract for the two boroughs had four of its trucks set on fire and withdrew from the competition. "This left a single participant, which won the contract, and this is a company linked to Taki [an alias of the controversial businessman Hristoforos Amanatidis]," Yes, Bulgaria co-chair and MP Ivaylo Mirchev said on September 19. He said that waste disposal in Sofia had previously cost BGN 144 per tonne, while the company connected to Taki offered BGN 420 per tonne. Terziev rejected the offer.