Troubled Bulgarian Registry Agency with New Head

The Bulgarian Registry Agency, which has been accused of numerous public procurement violations, has a new Director. Photo by 24 Hours

Violeta Nikolova has been appointed at the post of Executive Director of Bulgaria's troubled Registry Agency, the Justice Ministry press center informs Friday.

Nikolva has a double major in Law and International Business Relations from the University for National and World Economy in Sofia. The new Director also has a 10-year-long career as a lawyer for the National Expert Doctors' Committee at the Health Ministry, in the Chief Prosecutor's Administration, and in the Directorate "Procedural Representation of Republic of Bulgaria before the European Human Rights Court" with the Justice Ministry.

Nikolova replaces Anastas Georgiev, who was appointed temporary Director a year ago, after Daniela Miteva was released from her duties.

At the end of September, the National Audit Office (NAO) announced it has discovered public procurement orders' violations at the Registry Agency in a probe conducted for the period January 1, 2008 - December 31, 2009.

During the above period the Agency had made public orders payments exceeding BGN 12 M, VAT excluded. The auditors found many violations in the assignment of public orders leading to large-scale waste of public funding.

Violations involve listing unclear and too strict requirements for participants and groundless elimination of bidders in order to determine the winning proposal.

The end result has been contracts signed for prices that are not competitive and/or much higher than the preliminary assessed value of the order. The Agency, which is under the Justice Ministry, had also contracted outside companies to carry out similar works simultaneously, which further led to the waste of resources.

The Agency further failed to identify potential risks at different stages of the public order assignment procedures and conduct permanent and effective control.

Some of the violations amount to criminal acts and this is why they have been sent to the Prosecutor's Office.

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