Bulgaria's Radev says Sungurlare graft probe is 'only the beginning'
A day after the mayor of Sungurlare was detained, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the scheme was starting to unravel and accused Peevski and Borissov of losing control of financial flows.
Archive image · Photo: Government of Bulgaria / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev on Wednesday cast an investigation into the municipality of Sungurlare in Burgas province as the start of a wider case. Opening a cabinet meeting, he said the scheme was beginning to unravel and that he expected this to be only the beginning. Radev conceded that Sungurlare was hardly a centre of corruption, but said the government would not stop until law enforcement reached the top of what he called the oligarchic pyramid.
On Tuesday, the organised-crime directorate GDBOP and the State Agency for National Security (DANS) searched the municipal administration and detained the mayor. Investigators are looking into suspected abuses in the award and execution of public procurement contracts and seized documents. According to bTV, they are checking whether money was diverted from the municipal budget and whether paid-for work was actually carried out. No amounts or charges have been made public, and the mayor is presumed innocent.
Radev praised district-level prosecutors, saying earlier efforts by DANS and the Interior Ministry had stalled at the prosecution service but that this had changed since Tuesday, BNT reported. He also attacked party leaders Delyan Peevski (DPS) and Boyko Borissov (GERB), saying they could not dictate to the government and were losing control of financial flows. The remarks come in the final week before Sunday's presidential election.