Amid the turbulent political events in the country from the recent months the weather in the state administration seems as if stopped. Turmoil and struggle for power does not affect the procedures for the award of public contracts. And although many of the auctions of GERB were known with their previously adjusted terms, eliminating any competition and ensuring the victory of specific companies, caretaker ministers did not hesitate to carry out all the tenders announced by the previous government. And this happened without even checking how they were won and to whom the money will go.
Theh most contracts were signed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. It is this ministry (during the reign of former Minister Miroslav Naydenov) that was wasting ineffectively resources on media releases, brochures, billboards and expensive social media profiles. Now the vicious practice will continue after caretaker Minister Ivan Stankov put his signature under some big competitions announced by his predecessor. Undoubtedly the biggest pie goes to Elite Travel International of Anelia and Margarita Bachiyski who signed a contract for the provision of air transportation, hotel accommodation and medical insurance of employees of the agricultural ministry. For the next two years the company will collect 2 million levs without VAT. A solid 1.45 million levs, VAT excluded, will be grabbed by Global Consulting of Dimitar Dzhendov. This company will have to develop an information system for data exchange, analysis, evaluation and control of the implementation of the guarantee schemes in the rural development programme.
In the first days in office, the caretaker government signed a contract to organize a festival of agricultural producers. A total of 390,000 levs, without VAT, will be paid for the holding of exhibitions, public events and seminars, tastings and information stands to the consortium Bio Forum, which includes Neo Services, Vemeks and the Foundation for Organic Agriculture Bioselena.
Other 357,000 levs will go to Metropolis Group to provide new billboards to inform people of the existence of the rural programme. The company is run by former Regional Coordinator of GERB in Sofia, former head of the Municipal Council and currently councilor Andrey Ivanov.
As far as Grain Advertising by Martin Batkov is concerned, it will swallow nearly 560,000 levs on ad slots and PR materials in print media. Separately, 237,000 levs will go to G.I.D. Consult (owned by Daniel and Ivelina Kambourovi) for four thematic information campaigns, printing flyers and distributing advertising spots in the electronic media.
For the maintenance of the system for electronic document sharing in the ministry and for the training of employees Index Bulgaria (owned by Lyubomir Atanasov and Yanko Iliev) will take a little over 61 thousand levs, without VAT.
Lectures and team building will be enjoyed the officials of two departments in the Ministry of Environment and Water. Rally team games will be organized by the consortium Global Advisers-Mag Advertising for the sum of 553,000 levs. Manager of the second company in the group is Konstantin Manolov and majority owner is MAG Communications’ 85-year-old owner Sultanka Kraleva. Otherwise, this company is run by the deputy chairman of the Novoto Vreme party Krassen Kralev and Pavlina Mollova.
Far less will go to the company Active Group of Monika Yosifova (with whom the BSP leader Sergey Stanishev is living in cohabitation). Against 5670 levs the company will have to print leaflets, which will promote the ending year of the operational programme Environment. The Bulgarian office of the German Denkstatt (run by Boyan and Klimentina Rashevi and Zlatina Mihailova) will make a preliminary environmental assessment of the programme for the next programming period. The amount of this contract is 300,000 levs without VAT.
Eventually, after serious delays, project managers for the renovation of housing units were selected for the poorest northwest region of the country’s. In late April, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works signed a contract for 400,000 levs with the union Consultants for Energy Renovation of Bulgarian Homes. An order of the construction ministry provided 1 million levs without VAT to Mercury-97 of Vera Nikolova. The company will take care of the comfort of ministerial officials as they travel around the country for conferences and meetings.
Using the services of Event Design (owned by Lubos Skupnik, Maria Arsova – Trichkova and Tzetzka Radeva) the experts of the Ministry of Transport will travel comfortably on trainings and seminars. For this purpose they will spend 485 thousand levs. Interestingly enough, the agreement to improve services to citizens and businesses through the development of e-services will be cheaper – 440,000 levs, which will be paid to Consortium Inspire Bulgaria.
More modestly acted the people in the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, but there is no shortage of signed contracts, either. Among them is the contract for organizing a tourism fair, a film festival, a photo exhibition, a competition, as well as securing of billboards, posters and advertising reports to radio and television broadcasters. For this work the Ministry provides less than 50,000 levs and they will go to Tsarevgrad Tarnovo, owned by the municipality of Veliko Tarnovo.
A decent amount was allocated also for ongoing and thorough cleaning and performing moving services within one year between Borivan (144,000 levs without VAT) and sole proprietor Plameks of Plamen Mihaylov (49,000 levs without VAT) .
Impression made also the momentum of ministries and government agencies to acquire printers, toners and paper. As their favorite emerged the company Roel-98 (owned by Elena Pilosof and Robert Leviev). Only over the last two months this company has signed contracts for more than 2 million levs.
The BANKER
