Caretaker Minister Naydenov: The results of the audit at API are "extremely alarming"

The caretaker Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Nikolay Naydenov, announced that he had ordered an analysis of the financial situation of the Road Infrastructure Agency (API), and the results are "extremely worrying" and raise suspicions of irregularities. He said this at a briefing after a meeting of the caretaker cabinet.

According to Naydenov, internal inspectorates have conducted checks on public procurement and contracts, during which violations were found in several areas. The caretaker minister gave as an example a public procurement for protective barriers - guardrails, worth over 590 million euros for a period of five years. The inspectorate's report is already ready, and numerous irregularities have been found in it, and it is to be sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Naydenov said. 

Serious problems have also been identified in the contracts for current repair and maintenance of roads. Their total value was initially about 2.26 billion euros, calculated for a period of four years, but as of February 19 this year, almost the entire resource has been awarded and spent in about a year and a half. According to Naydenov, a significant part of the funds are being directed to the so-called preventive repair, which in fact conceals major repairs - a practice that he defined as "vicious" and stated his intention to be limited.