All current contracts for current repairs and installation of guardrails on the republican road network were concluded by the former official regional minister Ivan Shishkov, GERB-SDF MP Nikolay Nankov said on bTV on Friday. The former minister from the cabinet “Borisov 3“ sharply criticized the statements of the presidential institution and called for a stop to politicking against the backdrop of the growing number of victims in accidents in the country.
Nankov pointed out that in the months of March, April and May of the current year, a 30 percent increase in victims in road accidents was reported compared to previous periods.
"How short a memory do the current rulers have compared to Radev's official cabinet in 2023, when Ivan Shishkov was the official regional minister? The contracts that are currently being worked on for the installation of guardrails were concluded precisely in Shishkov's cabinet. This is public information," the MP pointed out.
He appealed to the institutions for increased control and adequate measures. "There can be no control without it. Once the government has a full majority in parliament, let them do the right things, we see that non-governmental organizations are making reasonable proposals," Nankov added.
The GERB-SDF MP categorically rejected speculation about large-scale orders at inflated prices, calling them manipulation.
"There is nothing true in the theses about orders for guardrails for over 1 billion euros, why is Radev talking with manipulated data - there is an order for 490 million euros. Shishkov cannot handle numbers, he confuses millions, billions"
According to the information provided by Nankov, the procedure for the guardrails has not been terminated. Of all the positions in it, only in one were the participants removed, while complaints have been filed with the Competition Protection Commission for the remaining five.
"The contracts for current repairs and maintenance - both contracts were concluded personally by Shishkov in Radev's office - for the guardrails from September and October 2022, and for current repairs and maintenance were concluded on Shishkov's last day as minister - this is probably a coincidence, I am convinced - on June 6, 2023", said the former regional minister, emphasizing that to this day they work with the same companies and at the same prices.
Regarding the “Hemus“ highway, Nankov refuted the claims about suspended in-house procedures: "At the beginning of the week there was a grand briefing about how orders for in-house contracts on “Hemus“ were terminated - absolute lies! The new methodology, adopted by the Council of Ministers and all departments, concerns the indexation of costs under the Public Procurement Act, and it does not concern “Hemus“, the Vidin-Mezdra road and others. This methodology is not applied in existing cases. Why should one lie that something has been terminated, when in practice it has not been?"
At the end of his speech, Nankov drew attention to the scale of the contracts concluded by Ivan Shishkov, noting that they amount to over 1.53 billion euros.
He recalled that the regulation prohibiting the placement of concrete blocks between road lanes for security reasons was the work of Shishkov's team. "Its purpose was to install guardrails, this was developed by Shishkov's team, who concluded the contracts for the guardrails. "GERB has not been involved in the road sector for 5 years," the MP concluded.