Bulgaria Ex Deputy FinMin Amnesia Hampers Notorious Road Trial

Bulgaria's former Deputy Finance Minister, Dimitar Ivanovski (center), proved to be an unreliable witness during the Thursday trial involing large-scale conflict of interests at the former Road Fund. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's former Deputy Finance Minister, Dimitar Ivanovski, who appeared as witness in the trial of the former Head of the National Road Infrastructure Fund, failed to offer any relevant insight Thursday.

Vesselin Georgiev aka "Batko" (Big Borther) is charged with gross misconduct in office over the alleged awarding of contracts worth BGN 120 M to companies run by two of his brothers.

Ivanovski told the magistrates that he did not remember much of what had happened and was not aware of the January 2008 letter of the European Commission warning Bulgaria they would freeze the EU PHARE and ISPA programs' funds over conflict of interests at the state-owned Road Infrastructure institution.

Ivanovski said the letter was not addressed to him thus he never read it, adding the projects in question were financed 100% with Bulgarian resources, not by the EU funds.

According to the former Deputy Finance Minister, the audit prepared by KPMG "mentioned something about potential conflict of interests" but never included any particular names, only abbreviations.

When asked by the Prosecutor what he thought about the possible tarnishing of Bulgaria's image by the halting of the ISPA funds, Ivanovski replied: "I do not understand your question."

 

 

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