site.btaEconomy Ministry, Anti-Corruption Fund to Partner in Ensuring Transparency in Public Spending

The Ministry of Economy and Industry and the Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF) will cooperate to ensure maximum transparency and stop the abuse of public funds, said the Ministry. This transpired after a meeting of Minister of Economy and Industry Bogdan Bogdanov with the ACF Director Boyko Stankushev and ACF co-founder Nikolay Staykov.

Minister Bogdanov pointed out that the cooperation with proven experts in the field of anti-corruption will guarantee transparent processes and protection of the public interest in case of detected abuse of public funds in the Ministry's wards, including in state-owned companies. "One of our main goals is to stop inefficient management and restore people's trust in institutions by showing that they can work transparently," said Bogdanov.

The Anti-Corruption Fund commented that in order to restore trust in institutions, there must be a result of the interaction on specific cases of high public interest related to misuse of state funds.

Some of the examples that were discussed were an established number of abuses and violations in the management of public enterprises from previous years, including the awarding of nearly BGN 800 million without public procurement. Among them are over BGN 500 million for the repair of dams, an unrealized government complex and a series of contracts concluded for the transfer of claims by the State Consolidation Company (SCC).

Minister Bogdanov was adamant that the inefficient and non-transparent management of the enterprises cannot continue.

"So far, we have taken all the necessary actions according to the law to recover state funds. We returned the first BGN 45 million to the SCC from the company that was entrusted with the implementation of the project for the unrealized government complex. We also repaid the SCC loan to the Bulgarian Development Bank, in the amount of BGN 126.4 million, so that the public enterprises that were pledged as collateral for this loan could be released,” he explained.

The Minister noted that in this way, the payment of the accumulated interest on the loan, which so far alone amounts to BGN 22 million, has been stopped. With the repayment of the loan, the companies will be able to develop and contribute a dividend to the budget, instead of continuing to pay interest on the loan, said Bogdanov.