Study Discovers Wide-spread Violations of Public Procurement Rules
Bulgarian institutions either commit wide-spread violations when conducting public procurement procedures or fail to call tender procedures altogether, a report published by the country's public financial inspection agency showed.
The audit of the public procurement procedures carried out by the Council of Ministers, for instance, found violations in three of the signed contracts, worth a combined 11.6 million levs ($7.3 million/5.9 million euro), the state-run Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on Tuesday, citing data from the inspection agency.
The number of performed audits totals 109.
The state-owned mining company Mini Maritsa East is found to have committed numerous violations in conducting public procurement procedures, including skipping tender procedures for 11 contracts worth nearly 1.1 million levs. The audit of the company also found irregularities in contracts granted for armed security services, food and car supplies, technical equipment and other supplies.
The inspection agency also ascertained as illegal a tender procedure worth a total of 198 million levs called for the purposes of the construction of nuclear power plant Belene, news agency Darik News reported on Tuesday.
The agency, however, stressed that the instances where violations were committed did not involve EU funds.