Bulgaria Watchdog Rejects Appeal over Sofia's Waste Plant

The construction of the Sofia waste treatment plant has already been delayed by more than a year. Photo by BGNES

The Competition Protection Commission has rejected the appeal of the Bulgarian consortiums “Balkanstroi” and “Valmex” over the outcome from the tender to select a builder for future Sofia waste treatment plant.

The public procurement tender was won by a consortium between the Bulgarian “Stanilov” company and the German “Heilit”.

The rejected offers include the German “Hochtief” and the Greek “Helector”, who participated with a joint bid in the tender of the Sofia Municipality but were ranked second, as well as major Bulgarian companies such as “Glavbolgarstroi,” “Balkanstroi,” “Valmex,” and “Holding Roads.”

The four rejected companies have submitted appeals to the Competition Protection Commission. The anti-monopoly commission has rejected only one appeal for now but will consider the other appeal as well, without stopping the competition.

“Hochtief” and “Helector” have appealed their second position in the tender, “Balkanstoi” -its elimination, while the rest of the companies have appealed the whole procedure in the competition.

The decision for rejecting the temporary measure to stop the procedure can be appealed in the Supreme Administrative Court. In that case, the building of the waste treatment plant should be stopped until the Court ruling.

The winner in the tender, “Stanilov-Heilit” offered BGN 208 808 700 while the cost for maintenance of the equipment was BGN 9 427 949 per year. The Greek-German consortium between “Helektor” and “Hochtief,” offering BGN 240 614 029 and BGN 9 828 899 respectively, ranked second.

The “Stanilov” company, which belongs to Bulgarian businessman, Georgi Stanilov, is taking part in the construction of the Sofia metro and has contracts to build several waste treatment facilities around the country.

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