When chaos reigns, it gives ground for all kinds of unregulated practices to flourish.
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by the municipal councilor from "Save Sofia" Boris Bonev.
"If we don't open our eyes that we have a serious problem, then the path for GERB to return to Sofia on a white horse is more than open and the path for Peevski to become the prime minister of Bulgaria - also because Sofia is a litmus test for national politics. We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening", he was categorical. And he commented:
"The big problem that is happening today is that corruption turns out not to be a quality only of GERB, Peevski, DPS and those parties that we are used to associating with such types of practices, but corruption is a system that clearly continues to function well in the Sofia Municipality despite the new government and all the requests that were made. Here comes the turning point - how will our community, which came with the big requests, react to this scandal - whether we will react like Borisov, who usually, like a Teflon pan, nothing sticks to him, sweeps everything under the carpet, no personal responsibility is taken, or we will use this very unpleasant scandal, which casts a serious stain on the entire anti-corruption community, to change the system that allows corruption to exist".
According to him, the "GERB" model continues in Sofia. One must fight corruption, Bonev is categorical. According to him, the long-term approach to this phenomenon is to create a system with clear responsibilities, rules of operation, accountability and transparency.
"In order to create this anti-corruption system, there must first be an audit, and an audit of the management of GERB was not done. Not only that, but many of the people who managed the Sofia Municipality during the GERB era, through whom unregulated practices were carried out, currently continue to work there", the municipal councilor expressed his concern.
In an interview for the program "Nedelya 150", he emphasized that after the scandal in the PP, he called the district mayors from "Spasi Sofia" to ask them if there were any cases of pressure and conversations about orders, percentages and distribution. The answers were negative, he said, and reminded of the rules for preventing such situations.
According to him, Kiril Petkov's resignation is a good move. So far, no political leader has resigned when he himself is not personally involved in such a scandal, he stressed.
And he called - let's not remove the responsibility from the mayor and his team for what is happening. According to him, the chaos in the Sofia Municipality is the best soil for the germination of all kinds of unregulated practices.
"Absolutely all district mayors, municipal councilors, deputy mayors have gone through the process of a nomination committee, which was chaired by Vasil Terziev. This means that he bears joint responsibility with all parties. Each of the parties, the mayor and the three parties had the right to veto if we thought that a candidate was unsuitable. /.../ The mayor's team carried out the so-called background check of the candidates. Now this posture "Don't ask me, I don't know anything, this is the first time I'm hearing" - shows insincerity, because this is not true", explained Boris Bonev.
He recalled that Nikola Barbutov is directly subordinate to the mayor:
"If such things happened there, how come you don't know in your own house what is happening", Bonev asked and added:
"This means that either you are not interested, or you have not created systems to prevent such situations, or if you knew and did not react, you are an accomplice. /.../ You must take responsibility and say what measures you are taking. The mayor must say what he will do to prevent such practices from happening.".
The leader of "Save Sofia" announced that 1/3 of the deputy mayor positions in the Sofia Municipality are vacant. According to him, this demonstrates a serious failure of the mayor's personnel policy.
"There is certainly a political element to the situation, but there is no smoke where there is no fire".