Bulgaria: Whistleblowers Alert Prosecutor’s Office to Turk Stream and Corruption in Defence Ministry

The parliamentary ad hoc Committee on detection of abuses and violations in the spending by the Council of Ministers, the Ministries, the state authorities, the state-owned enterprises and companies with more than 50 per cent state participation in the last 10 years has submitted 22 signals for corruption and financial abuse to the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Bulgaria, the prosecutor's office reported.

Some letters contain allegations of admitted wrongdoing in the preparation of the environmental risk assessment form for the construction of the "International Gas Link Bulgaria - Serbia";

Among others is the signal from the "Bivol" investigative site regarding claims about the Turk Stream project (Balkan Stream); and another one containing allegations of violations in the Bulgarian Development Bank and the Fund of Funds;

There are also signals for up-to-date cases, e.g. allocation of funds under business support measures and corruption schemes, for example in the Ministry of Defence.

The state prosecutor assures that the signals will be forwarded to the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor's Office, Sofia city prosecutor's office, specialized prosecutor's office and/or other territorial structures.

They will be randomly allocated to a supervising prosecutor who should carry out specific actions in accordance with the law and his functional competence.