Investigations into reports of illegal construction, large advances given out and missing construction materials on key infrastructure projects in Bulgaria have been put on hold. The cases concerning the construction of the Hemus Motorway, the Northern Expressway of Sofia, the Sofia Ring Road and sections of the Trakia Motorway have remained without any real movement over the past three years. This was announced by arch. Ivan Shishkov in an interview for the program Metronome on Radio Focus (source: www.focus-news.net).
Backstory: The huge signal from March 2023
During his participation, Arch. Shishkov recalled that the large-scale inspections of the road network began during the official offices, in which he held the posts of Deputy Minister and Minister of Regional Development (source: www.debati.bg). During the inspections by taking asphalt cores, striking violations were found - including a lack of up to 33% of the asphalt laid down in the project on the Northern Expressway.
„I personally, together with the then Prime Minister Galab Donev, notified the prosecutor's office about all these things with an extremely detailed and long signal in March 2023“, explained Shishkov, quoted by the official website of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works (source: www.mrrb.bg). According to him, the entire society expected quick answers, but three years later there is no result.
Lack of action and “obvious robbery“
According to Ivan Shishkov, institutional inaction has allowed the people who committed the violations in question to remain unpunished (source: www.eurocom.bg). He emphasized that the “Hemus“ motorway has become an emblem of corruption suspicions due to the distribution of huge advance payments without ready-made projects, as well as due to the illegal construction on its fourth lot.
Shishkov also revealed that he personally held a meeting with the acting Prosecutor General to request information about the fate of these files (source: www.24chasa.bg). “The damage to the state has begun to become very serious. We had to ask the prosecutor's office to finally look into these files, because this is about someone not doing their job the way society expects," the former minister was categorical (source: www.bta.bg).
Urgent need for repairs
The problem with the “frozen“ files also has a direct practical dimension. Compromised road sections need immediate major repairs, but the lack of clear prosecutorial conclusions and legal decisions slows down the processes of restoring the infrastructure. While the cases are blocked in the judicial system, Bulgarian citizens continue to travel on dangerous and poorly built roads.