Bulgaria Ex-Minister Etem Spent BGN 735 000 M on Fake Damages

Bulgaria's former Emergency Situations Minister Etem (left) pictured here with her controversial deputy, Delyan Peevski (right). Photo by BGNES

Emel Etem, Bulgaria’s Minister of Emergency Situations in the Stanishev government, allocated sizable sums of state budget money for fake damages.

On March 19, 2009, the Inter-departmental Committee chaired by Etem, who was also the Deputy Prime Minister from the ethnic Turkish DPS party, allotted BGN 735 000 for the repairs of six mosques and four churches in the northeast District of Razgrad, the 24 Chasa Daily reported. No other public buildings were said to have been damaged but those.

The buildings were said to have been damaged by a storm but there had been no such damages whatsoever, said the new District Governor of Razgrad, Valentin Vasilev. Instead, the funds were spent on repair works for local offices of the DPS party and private stores.

The most shocking example is the village of Dyankovo, where the BGN 96 097 allocated for repairs of a mosque was used to improve a DPS party office located in the yard of the mosque and the nearby stores.

Vasilev said the investigating of the fake damages would be completed within a week, and the evidence woul be handed to the Parliamentary Committee investigati1144ng the expenditures of the former government of Socialist Sergey Stanishev.

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