Angel Popov to FACT: We will talk about corruption as long as the "Automobile Administration exists"

Damage to the speedometer discs of the trucks with equipment for the Robbie Williams concert is the reason for the requested bribe. This was stated by the Director of the State Traffic Police, Chief Commissioner Lyubomir Nikolov during a briefing on the detained employees of the Executive Agency "Automobile Administration" (IAAA). Nikolov explained that the composition consisted of 22 vehicles with British registration, with potential malfunctions being identified in five of them. The DAI officers extorted the five foreign drivers after they stopped the trucks at around 7:20 p.m. near the "Black Cat" complex in Sofia. Two of the drivers provided 200 leva each after being forced to withdraw the amounts from an ATM, and a third agreed to gave 300 euros. There was a language barrier between the drivers and the inspectors, and the bribes were requested via Google Translate. What is this… Eng. Angel Popov from the European Center for Transport Policies spoke to FACTI.

- Mr. Popov, Executive Agency “Automobile Administration“ (IAAA) has made a name for himself again. How many more times will we talk about corruption when it comes to this agency?
- We will talk about corruption in the Executive Agency “Automobile Administration“ until this agency is transferred to another ministry - forcefully. We will talk about corruption as long as the “Automobile Administration“ exists.

- Is there a way to stop this?
- Absolutely. If there is internal control, which apparently there is not now. In the period 2016 to 2021, things were others. The situation has never been like this, understand. And Mrs. Rusinova wrote something interesting on social networks, namely that the selection of personnel in the Ministry of Transport is very interesting. When I was in the ministry, do you know what kind of personnel there were - hairdressers, chemists, metallurgists, from agriculture. I say this from memory, but it can be easily checked. What is the criterion now - it is most likely the same.

- And how to change this…
- With work and knowledge. We are not seeing either of these at the moment. What we are seeing are an extremely large number of signals from affected carriers, from training centers, from affected technical points. We - from the European Center for Transport Policies, submit many signals to various services, but there is no result. Still, there is some communication, which is good. When we receive one signal, and we receive dozens of signals, we simply pass it on as information with the hope that someone will pay attention to him.

- Give examples of signals?
- Here it is from last month, a month and a half. We asked the ministry through the media, because they do not want to communicate not only with us, but also with other organizations from the non-governmental sector, so we asked whether the former chairman of the examination committee had his license revoked. We did not receive an answer, but the answer is - yes. At the end of last year, the person who leads all the examiners in Sofia was left without a license.

- For what violation?
- Alcohol. What does this tell you? The person who is responsible for all the examiners in Sofia does not have a license. Nonsense. The person who is in charge of the people who issue driving licenses does not have one. And what does this border on - negligence, corruption, all put together.

- And the fact that the salaries in The automobile administration is not high, does it make employees "want"……
- Even if their salaries become high, nothing will change, because there is no internal control. And sometimes things are so organized that it is a scheme. Here is an example. Do you remember the case of the truck that hit the gas station near Radomir.

- Yes, it spun and hit the electronic dashboard with the numbers…
- An inspection was scheduled and the minister said that half of the company's cars were checked, and some of them had two tachographs!? If you ask an ordinary driver, he will tell you that only a layman could say that. The minister said that, because he was clearly misled. And that's how this inspection ended. Nothing.

- But now we hear from Minister Karadzhov that the employees in the case with Robbie Williams' trucks are fired. This is fast, but is it right?
- This is an incorrect measure, because the minister cannot fire. On what basis, on what grounds. There must be a prosecutorial investigation, there must be evidence. And we are waiting for someone to call the British embassy. If the fired people find good lawyers, nothing will happen to them. It is a very long topic. But I want to draw attention to something serious, worrying and scary. Some time ago we requested information from the TOLL administration about the overloaded trucks.

- Because?
- Because every overloaded truck is a killer on the road. Every overloaded truck is the biggest enemy of safety. If a car is overloaded by more than 10%, its braking system is not adapted for this and it becomes dangerous on the road. And we received interesting information. From January 1 to July 1, the scales of the TOLL system detected 13.4% of overloaded trucks out of all trucks in Bulgaria. There are regions where overloaded trucks are 45%. A very interesting change in the Road Traffic Act is already in effect, which says that in case of overloading, the control body can remove the license plates and fine the driver.

- And how many license plates are removed…
- We chose five regions for analysis - Pernik, Kyustendil, Blagoevgrad, Montana and Vratsa. It turned out that in one period there were five violators in Pernik, and in Vratsa and Montana there was not a single one. What does this mean - someone simply does not check them. We have "good day, the inspection has been carried out" and "goodbye and have a nice trip". And these are killers on the road. This is also unfair competition. Because most trucks spend as much as they are allowed, and for others it does not apply. And one more thing. We asked to watch a recording of the practical and theoretical exam of Viktor, who crashed his flying Audi into the bus. We asked to watch the recordings of Burgazliev, who caused the accident in Sunny Beach. We want to know how the vehicles were registered at the technical inspections. Nothing. And I will tell you how - corruptly. 100% corruption. And if measures are not taken, things will become even worse.