Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Grozdan Karadzhov held a meeting today with the entire management of the Agency “Automobile Administration“.
“We all must apologize to the foreign drivers who were blackmailed in an extremely ugly way by inspectors of the Automobile Administration. They came to Bulgaria to do their job, and they encountered corruption and racketeering. This is unacceptable. Let us also apologize to the Bulgarian citizens, because the name of Bulgaria was involved in this scandal“, he said.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced that after the incident with the two detained inspectors, 4 employees of the Agency will be released - the director of the General Directorate “Automobile Inspection“, the head of the Regional Department “Automobile Administration“ - Sofia and two members of an internal commission under the Anti-Corruption Act, who have not fulfilled their obligations to prevent such abuses.
“The responsibility lies not only with the inspectors, but also with their managers, who must monitor and organize the control activity“, Karadjov also said.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced the new rules that are being introduced in the Automobile Administration. Body cameras will be introduced for all road inspectors to ensure transparency, as well as mandatory rotation of inspectors to break local dependencies and schemes.
„We have invited the international anti-corruption organization „Transparency Without Borders“ to conduct an external independent audit of the Agency, within the framework of which they will also check all signals of corruption in the Automobile Administration, submitted this year, in order to have complete clarity whether and where the system was breached.
My responsibility is to protect Bulgarian citizens and honest employees. Honest inspectors will be supported, and corrupt ones will be exposed and punished. I am giving a clear signal: no umbrella, no compromises, no exceptions“, Karadjov also emphasized.