Road construction companies have received almost BGN 1.5 billion in advances, said Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Arch. Ivan Shishkov. He pointed out that only BGN 363 million have been used for finished sites, while over BGN 1 billion leva were paid in advances, which were not yet ready to be used for construction. He told „BNT“:
„One of the main problems that exist between us and the companies is because the state in the face of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works wants to guarantee the money that belongs to the entire Bulgarian people. It has been mentioned several times that there are large infrastructure projects for which money has been distributed, for which there are no plans – that is, construction will obviously start in years to come, and in some of these companies there are over a billion of Bulgarian taxpayers.“
Shishkov is adamant that precisely because of these funds, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works wants to talk to these companies in order to be able to guarantee the state money that is in them. He believes that this is a fundamental problem. According to him, some of the road construction companies were given money in a non-transparent way and without a legal basis. The Deputy Minister explained:
„Every year the state has allocated a budget for road repairs and winter maintenance in the range of about BGN 300 million for all companies. They worked for over BGN 1 billion a year and at the end of the year they were given money by a decree of the Council of Ministers.„
The architect clarified that there is no legal basis for these promised funds, because this money is not in the state budget.
