Sofia Fire Department Gets New Head after Fake Diploma Scandal

Ognyan Metodiev has been appointed head of Sofia Fire Department after his predecessor resigned amidst the scandal with the fake diploma of his daughter, former head of a Bulgarian agency overseeing hundreds of millions of euros in EU farm aid.

Ivan Iliev is currently on a leave, and will resign as of January 1, 2011, as a result of the scandal that shook Bulgaria's Agriculture Ministry in the past months.

His daughter Kalina Ilieva became head of the state agency handling payments from the European Union, of which Bulgaria became a member, in 2009. She was 28 at the time.

Her job was to implement stricter oversight over EU-funded projects, after several corruption affairs saw Brussels sever aid to Bulgaria. The EU unblocked all aid in November 2009.

Ilieva now faces charges in both Bulgaria and Germany after it turned out that the diploma she produced before being hired, claiming to have graduated from the Berlin University for Engineering and Economics, was faked.

The scandal erupted at the end of last month, when it also emerged that she has flooded the EU anti-fraud agency with hundreds of fraud signals.

Officials have warned that the European Commission may press Bulgaria into paying back more than BGN 200 M as many of the blacklisted companies have won their cases against Ilieva in court.

Reports also say Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov's phone conversations have been tapped for more than six months as a result of a signal from the discredited former head of the Agriculture Fund.

Previously, she lied she had a tumor and was very ill in an attempt to conceal her pregnancy, which led to her removal from the post in October.

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