As incredible as it may sound, nearly 700 million levs under the European initiative JEREMY are now managed not by anybody else, butd by the Secretary of the Ministry of Sport – Mariana Velkova. To the dismay of the business circles, the boss of the Executive Agency for the promotion of SMEs is still on the board of directors of JEREMY Bulgaria in the capital of whose the mentioned money is allocated. This information bordering on the absurd and law order has remained hidden from the public eye for a second month. And there was no one in the interim government nor from the supposedly fierce opposition, to ask how come an official involved in the administrative work of the sports department decides the fate of the EU financing for businesses?
The situation becomes even more paradoxical when one remembers that it was Mariana Velkova that ruined the hopes of businesses to benefit from EU funds. That’s why in May 2012 she was removed as an intermediary of the programme Competitiveness and in mid-March this year – also from the head position in the agency for small businesses. Apparently, boasting they have removed Velkova for the good of small entrepreneurs, the previous rulers from GERB actually left her as the head of JEREMY.
In practice, this lady is the only representative of the state in this organisation. The other two directors representing the European Investment Fund are Hebert Kototni and Peter Stolovsi. Velkova was tasked with the difficult mission of protecting the interests of Bulgarian companies in June 2010, according to the Commercial Register. But the facts are not rpsy. Since then, business financing, through the instruments of JEREMY goes extremely slowly and generally the scheme is more unpopular than the grants under Competitiveness. Nevertheless, last year new 300 million levs of the operational programme was transferred to JEREMY. Now this whole huge financial resource under JEREMY remains virtually unused (in the form of bank deposits), while hundreds of companies are waiting for approved projects on reserve lists, for which they say there is no money.
Not for overlooking is the interesting detail that pops up from the financial statements of the company JEREMY Bulgaria for 2011 (for 2012 there is still no financial report). The document says that the revenue from interests of the company is in the amount of 3.29 million levs while the other revenue is for another 781 thousand levs, while management costs only came to over 13.4 million levs. Despite these details changing Mariana Velkova as a member of the Board of Directors has not even been proposed. Person would say that the government just forgot about her role in the work of Jeremy. Or have lasted to keep it a key position.
To understand what is happening and is it permissible ever to combine the functions of the Secretary General, which is the highest level in the hierarchy of government employees, and a member of the board of directors of a company such as JEREMY Bulgaria, we approached the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism. To the editorial office’s great surprise the ministry quickly responded that the European Investment Fund has already received a nomination for a new member of the board of directors to replace Mariana Velkova. She held the position in her capacity of an Executive Director of the Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises. We propose the new member of the management of JEREMY Bulgaria to be Borislav Stefanov, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Investment Agency. Inscribing the change in the Commercial Register is a matter of time, said the press service of the Ministry.
The BANKER
