The contracts for the guardrails were concluded in 2022 in connection with tenders and competitions held in previous cabinets before us. They expired in October 2025. Interestingly, the contracts were for 300 million, it turns out at one point that 500 million were paid under these contracts. This was stated to journalists by the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Arch. Ivan Shishkov before the meeting of the parliamentary committee on regional policy, public works and local self-government.
„In 2025, a series of annexes were signed, which exceeded the value of these contracts many times“, said Shishkov. According to him, the contracts expired at the end of 2025. „You know, an attempt was made for an order that was for 1 billion. You see the difference - an order for 300 million is made, 500 million are spent. At one point, an attempt is made to make these same guardrails start costing 1 billion“, he added.
The regional minister announced that he has information from the „Road Infrastructure“ Agency (API) that it has finalized the procedure and currently has an official letter to terminate the order.
„2022 I said that there were competitions and tenders that were held during the time of Minister Karadzhov“, Shishkov specified.
The indexations and updates that were made to the 3-year contracts will be subject to verification, he confirmed. „We are currently checking everything. Raising the issue of the buffers is not only the tragedy that happened, but it is because we did two things - we announced and did it to terminate the order for 1 billion, certainly this means a loss of financial interest for certain groups of people, and the fact that we have started an inspection specifically for these contracts, because it is strange, not to say suspicious, to exceed the values,“, added the regional minister.
Shishkov emphasized that there are many questions, they always find their answer and usually it comes down to a signal to the prosecutor's office.