Parliament OKs Building of Border Fence Without Public Procurement

The Bulgarian Parliament decided on Wednesday to continue the construction of the fence at the border with Turkey without launching a public procurement procedure.

The members of parliament approved the amendments to the Public Procurement Act at first and second reading without discussions, the news website Dnevnik reports.

The amendments were tabled by MPs of the ruling coalition at the request of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov last week.

The coalition partners justified the decision to continue with the swift construction of the fence with the need to safeguard national security.

Bulgaria's commitment to guarding the external border of the European Union (EU) is as a further reason for the decision.

According to it, the country has to adopt adequate measures for ensuring the crossing of the border is compatible with the normative basis.

According to estimates, which were presented by Prime Minister Borisov on Tuesday, the fence will cost BGN 90 M and will have a length of 82 kilometres.

However, former Defence Minister and current Socialist MP Angel Naydenov pointed that the construction of 10 kilometres of the already existing section costed BGN 2.5 M.

Naydenov, who calculated that the same length of the new section will cost more than BGN 10 M, called for strict control on the expenses and transparency in the choice of the construction firms.

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