Ex Bulgarian Transport Minister Blames GERB for Missing Railway Cars

Bulgaria's former Transport Minister, Petar Mutafchiev, from the quota of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, in the Three-Way Coalition cabinet. Photo by BGNES

The inventory of the railway cars owned by Bulgaria's State Railroad company shows that 650 of them went missing in 2010.

The statement was made Wednesday by Petar Mutafchiev former Transport Minister from the quota of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, in the Three-Way Coalition cabinet, saying the mystery is making Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, very nervous.

Mutafchiev spoke in an interview for the TV channel bTV after asking to appear in the morning show to use his "right to answer."

The request was triggered by Djankov's revelations, in the same show, one day earlier that the 1 000 railway cars recently found to be missing from BDZ either left the country as early as the Yugo embargo and never came back or were cut for scrap 4-5 years ago when Mutafchiev was Transport Minister

Meanwhile, neighboring Serbia has denied having any BDZ cars on their territory.

"It is high time to stop political manipulations and smear campaigns. During the 2009 inventory, 200-250 cars were found missing, but we later found them here and there. About 55 cars are missing permanently – maybe they are somewhere abroad since 1989," Mutafchiev stated Wednesday.

The ex Minister further asked who is going to be held accountable for the missing 650 cars now, which disappeared during the term of the cabinet of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, GERB, party, of which Djankov is a member.

He added that one of the biggest problems of the railroads stems from the fact that the State is not paying its dues under the Passenger Services contracts, saying the payments were made until 2009 and were then halted.

"Until 2009 BDZ was not in any danger of becoming bankrupt over the subsidies paid by the State," Mutafchiev concluded.

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