A full revision of the contracts with NGO made by the former minister

It is being investigated whether the money for birds’ counting has gone to people close to him

He has spent BGN 4.7M without any Procurement

 

 

Borislav Sandov, the former Minister of Environment and Water in Kiril Petkov's government, is the subject of an investigation by the Commission for Combating Corruption and Illegally Acquired Assets (CCCIAA), "Labor" learned from sources from the Eco-Ministry.

At the beginning of the year, the MoEW requested documents related to a task assigned by Sandov to count birds.

For years, Sandov's party - "Green Movement" and the circle of non-governmental eco-organizations around it, have been calculating significant amounts of financial income from such activities, control over the implementation of which is practically impossible.

The anti-corruption commission is investigating Sandov for BGN 1.2 million, which should have been paid to the National Museum of Natural History for another feather count last summer. The suspicions are that the money should have reached persons who may be related to the former eco-minister and co-chairman of the "Green Movement" party, part of the "Democratic Bulgaria" coalition. Sandov commissioned the census in May 2022, with the absorption of the funds to be completed by September. This means that the Ministry of Education and Culture had to pay BGN 250,000-300,000 per month.

The inspection of CCCIAA should also establish whether the assignment assigned by Borislav Sandov does not duplicate another state-funded project for counting wild birds.

Despite his short tenure as a minister, this is at least the third investigation against Borislav Sandov that has been launched in recent months.

The previous two are also for clarifying reports of irregularities admitted

from Sandov, who failed to become a deputy in the current parliament. In December, it became clear that the State Financial Inspection Agency (SFIA) was investigating Sandov because of a contract he concluded with a non-governmental organization that was supposed to guard protected areas. It turns out that the NGO that receives the order from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was created only a month earlier.

SFIA is investigating Borislav Sandov also because of nine contracts that the Ministry of Education and Culture concluded with various structures of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) for a total value of BGN 4.7 million, but without conducting public procurement. One of these contracts is that of bird counting.

The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office left without comment the question of whether and when the investigations against Sandov will turn into pre-trial proceedings.