Bulgaria Opposition Involves Prosecutor in State Gazette 'Blunder'

The BSP Member of the Parliament, Maya Manolova, calls the illegitimate amendment to the drugs law printed in the State Gazette, document fraud and office malfeasance committed by the ruling GERB. Photo by BGNES

The Parliamentary group of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is going to file a claim with Chief Prosecutor, Boris Velchev, over the so-called State Gazette blunder.

The Socialists will further request a probe from the Parliamentary Anti-corruption Committee, the BSP Member of the Parliament, Maya Manolova, informs Tuesday.

The controversy stems from an illegitimate amendment to the drugs law printed in the State Gazette without the approval of the Parliament or the President. The amendment was not given the green light by either of them, but actually relieved the regime for advertising agencies to use images, resembling narcotic drugs.

President Georgi Parvanov was the one to alert about the change. The Socialist President also called it a precedent, at least since his coming into office, but the Speaker, Tsetska Tsacheva, who comes from the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) center-right party, claims a check has found a total of eleven such mistaken amendments in the 2000-2010 period .

On April 1, the Parliamentary Health Committee put to the vote the amendment and corrected the mistake.

According to Manolova, the incident is a stark example of an attempt to falsify the legislative procedure and amounts to document fraud and office malfeasance.

In their letter to the Chef Prosecutor, BSP point out that the Deputy Chair of the Health Committee, Plamen Tsekov, from the ruling GERB, intentionally misled MPs and read a text in plenary hall that differed from the one approved by the Committee.

The Socialists further demand that the Anti-corruption Committee investigates the stark violation of the parliamentary rules and procedures.

BSP also say the incident triggers doubts about corruption since the so-called blunder allows hidden advertisement of illegal drugs and would be of benefit to certain businesses, amounting to BGN 10 M, according to the Socialists' calculations.

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