The National Assembly rejected the proposal of the leader of the MRF Delyan Peevski on the agenda to hear the Minister of Interior Ivan Demerdzhiev. 184 MPs participated in the vote - 29 from the MRF and the PP voted “for“, 116 from the PB and one from the DB were “against“, and 38 from the GERB-SDF and the DB abstained. The MRF insisted that Demerdzhiev present to the parliament all the information on the case of the public procurement for guardrails and the allegations of financing Peevski's flights.
The hearing of Ivan Demerdzhiev scheduled for today was postponed to tomorrow due to the minister's commitments after the murder of Iliyan Filipov in Plovdiv. The hearing will be the first item tomorrow, BNR reported.
The deputies rejected a number of proposals to supplement the agenda - among them are hearings of the Chairman of the Commodity Exchange Commission on food prices and of Justice Minister Nikolay Naydenov on issues related to security and the judicial system. A second proposal to hear Demerdzhiev on a public procurement for personal documents and information about his properties and related persons was not adopted. A proposal that taxis could use bus lanes under certain conditions was also rejected.
We recall that on September 18, the Minister of the Interior stated that four companies had won 99.5% of the public procurement for the construction and installation of guardrails for about 7-8 months in the first half of 2022, having absorbed over 400 million euros. According to him, the contracts were indexed by over 150 million euros.
The Minister of Power claims that part of the funds were diverted to a company with no other activity, which he called a “piggy bank company“. According to the information presented by the Ministry of Interior, 36 flights of Delyan Peevski worth over 5 million euros were paid through it. Demerdzhiev also stated that one of the companies participating in the public procurement purchased an aircraft in 2020 for 36 million leva, which was subsequently transferred to a Maltese aviation services company. From there, according to the Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior Lyubomir Nikolov, 36 invoices were issued for a total of 5 million euros.
Demerdzhiev reported that connections with political figures and a diplomatic representative are emerging around the companies that the Ministry of Interior claims have concentrated a huge volume of orders for guardrails. Prime Minister Rumen Radev stated at the time that the executive branch cannot decide whether a crime has been committed, and its task is to collect evidence and provide it to the prosecutor's office.
After the data presented, Demerdzhiev notified the National Revenue Agency with a request to verify the actual amount of the flight expenses, the period of their execution, the origin of the funds and the correspondence between the declared income, property and expenses incurred. The reason for the signal was also Peevski's public words that he and his family paid for their trips.
Peevski rejected the Interior Minister's claims. He stated that “never, on any occasion” he and his family have participated in public procurement and have no relation to the companies associated with the barriers and flights. “These are lies! I emphasize - lies! And in connection with the enormous public interest, I hope that the NRA will complete this inspection and announce the results in the shortest possible time, within the legal deadlines," Peevski said in a statement.
He also stated that he had been subject to inspections by various institutions and services for years and called on Demerdzhiev to also check publicly disclosed data on the property of the Minister of the Interior and his family.