Over BGN 5 million was spent illegally during Boyko Borisov’s administration on legal fees for court cases under the “Growing Regions” operational program, he warned on Wednesday “Let’s continue the change”. The party referred the case to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in April this year.
How did the scheme work?
MRRD manages the 2014-2020 “Growing Regions” operational program, financed with European Union funds. Under the program, the ministry receives funds allocated by the EU, which can only be spent on specific activities. Our European and national legislation expressly prohibits the use of these funds for ineligible expenses: fines, financial penalties and legal costs for litigation.
In the period 2018-2020, the head of the program at the Ministry of Education and Culture is Deputy Minister Denitsa Nikolova, deputy of the GERB in the 47th National Assembly and current candidate for Popular Representative of Boyko Borisov’s party. In the same period, despite the express legal prohibition, Denitsa Nikolova has concluded over 500 contracts with law firms selected by her alone, for a total value of 5 million BGN, says “We continue the change”. All contracts are subject to defense in administrative judicial proceedings.
Among the contracts signed, 79 are with the law firm of Menko Menkov (Boyko Borisov’s personal lawyer) for a value of half a million BGN.
In a position with Mediapool Adv. Menko Menkov announced that the declaration of “We continue the change” that “BGN 5 million of European funds illegally reached Borisov’s law firm” it is manipulative, misleading and creates false suggestions about European funds obtained illegally by the law firm “Menko Menkov & Associates”. “The false and defamatory statements made will result in serious pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage to the law firm”, also indicated by the office.
The legal services project has not been audited for 5 years
According to the law on the management of EU funds, the National Fund Directorate is obliged to check whether the expenditure is legitimate and eligible. After this inspection, the management prepares a certification report and sends a request for reimbursement of expenses from the union’s budget to the European Commission. “All the reports of the Ministry of the Interior and Communications have been ‘verified’ by the Directorate of the National Fund and, although it is evident that the costs are ineligible, this has not been taken into consideration and the requests for payment have been sent to Brussels. The funds were paid by the EU, “he says. Let’s continue the change “.
According to the party, it was established that during the audit under the “Growing Regions” operational program, headed by Dobrinka Mihailova, not once did the financing of lawyers’ fees for legal cases fall within the selected samples ” presumably “at random.
In its September 20 statement, the Ministry of Finance service team practically confirmed that ineligible expenses were indeed paid and false EC eligibility declarations were filed under the Legal Services project for the resolution of court cases.
The total budget of the project for legal services is BGN 8.9 million, of which BGN 4.77 million has been spent, confirms the Ministry of Finance. The management of the National Fund at the MoF in Borisov’s governments, in its capacity as verifier and certifier of expenditure, did not exercise control. An “Audit of EU funds” executive agency never audited this project for the entire 5-year period it was implemented.
Subsequently, an extraordinary review of the project was carried out and a recommendation was made for the recovery of part of the ineligible costs. However, according to the PP, this was done by the government of Kiril Petkov after the release of Dobrinka Mihailova. “Immediately after the completion of the audit, the team, together with the new executive director, was fired by the incumbent finance minister, Rositsa Velkova,” the PP also said.
The Ministry of Defense cites statistics according to which, for the current programming period, the “Audit of EU Funds” Executive Agency sent notices with fraud indicators for 77 projects to the Bulgarian Public Prosecutor’s Office. For 13 projects, inspections are underway, for 54 projects the criminal proceedings have been refused and for one project the case has been confirmed. For 9 projects, it was formed criminal proceedings under the aegis of the delegated prosecutors of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (following a 2019 audit, the agency sent out the alert with information on fraud indicators on these projects).
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