BULGARIA’S DEPUTY MINISTER OF TRANSPORT RESIGNS AFTER CHARGES IN MISMANAGEMENT

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Borissov accepted the resignation of the Deputy Minister of Transport, IT and Communications, Anton Ginev, government’s press office said on 14th of June. Ginev pointed personal reasons for the resignation.

Earlier today, the Prosecutor’s Office said that charges were pressed against Anton Ginev for mismanagement. According to the prosecution, in 2007, Ginev, in his capacity of an executive director of the state owned enterprise “National Railways Infrastructure Company”, deliberately did not take sufficient care of the property entrusted to him, which resulted in significant losses for the enterprise at the amount of 927,000 BGN. The deliberate mismanagement is of significantly large size, the prosecutor’s office commented.

By an order dated 01.11. 2006 issued by Bulgaria’s Minister of Transport, Anton Ginev was appointed as an executive director of the state owned enterprise “National Railways Infrastructure Company”. In 2007, motivated by a non-existing urgency for repair of the central station in the city of Rousse, the enterprise awarded a contract after negotiations and prevented a public procurement tender.

The procedure was for carrying out studies of the deformation of the ground foundation of the station, design, reinforcement of the ground foundations and construction works associated with the reinforcement, restoration and rehabilitation of the station building totaling 3.12 million BGN.

Given the amount of money needed for these construction works, there should have been a public procurement procedure under the public procurement Act (PPA), because the amount exceeds the threshold required for a public procurement procedure. However, instead of that, the executive director Ginev, held negotiations with three companies.The contract was awarded to a company “Triumph” EOOD, controlled by MP Iliya Iliev, the prosecutor’s office said. The other two companies were not admitted to the procedure because of incomplete documents.

On 22.10.2007, Anton Ginev signed a contract with “Triumph” EOOD, envisaging payment of 195,000 BGN for design and 2,405,000 BGN, excluding VAT, for construction and repair works.

Within 10 days after signing the contract, Ginev authorized an advanced payment to the company at the amount of 927,000 BGN i.e. before any work under the contract was carried out, the company was paid the whole amount for design – 195,000 BGN and 732,000 BGN for construction and repair works. The advanced payment was even made before the opening of the construction site and before issuing the form 2a required for this act.

No work was carried out under the contract and Ginev made no attempt to recover the funds, the prosecutor’s office said.

The detention measure imposed on Anton Ginev is to daily report in person to the police.

Currently, Anton Ginev is a Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications. The pressing of charges against Ginjev came after the collection of evidence on the pre-trial proceedings against the MP Iliya Iliev, whose immunity Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor requested to be lifted on 7th of March 2007 for crimes under the Penal Code.

In the course of the investigation, the contracts of “National Railways Infrastructure Company” as contracting entity with traders controlled by Iliya Iliev or his close persons were seized.

Investigation activities led by the prosecutor’s office are on-going.

Чуйте последните новини, където и да сте!
Последвайте ни във Facebook и Instagram
Следете и канала на БНТ в YouTube
Вече може да ни гледате и в TikTok
Намерете ни в Google News