Bulgaria Ex-PM Knew about Violations by Former Deputy Minister

Bulgaria's PM Stanishev knew about the violations of Alexandar Filipov (right), according to ex-Deputy PM Etem. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's outgoing Minister of Emergency Situations, Emel Etem, said Saturday that she was first informed about violations made by her deputy, Alexandar Filipov, 2 years ago.

The Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations Filipov was arrested on July 6, 2009, on charges of vote buying and corruption in public procurement procedures. He was released on a BGN 10 000 bail three days later over health issues.

Etem, who was also a Deputy PM in the three-way coalition government from 2005 to 2009, said she was told that Filipov was abusing his influence, BGNES reported.

Etem claims that she told the then Prime Minister, Sergey Stanishev, and the leader of the NMSP party, Simeon Saxe-Coburg, about Filipov's violations, and talked to them about his potential removal. (Filipov became Deputy Minister from the quota of the NMSP party.)

She did stress, however, that any violations that Filipov might have committed, were outside of the work of her Ministry; as a Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations, Filipov was in charge of safe working conditions.

 

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!