There are no indications of bribery in Bulgaria's privatization Novoto_vreme - 2003/5/27
There are no indications of bribery within Bulgaria's Privatization Agency, the country's economy minister Nikolai Vassilev told the participants in an anti-corruption conference in Sofia Monday. "There is no single privatization deal during the rule of the current government that was clinched by the candidate who did not offer the highest price," Economy Minister Nikolay Vassilev said.
Less optimistic sounded Gen. Boyko Borissov, Interior Ministry's chief secretary, who said at the conference that police services were vulnerable in the fight against corruption and organized crime. "The heads of the services and me are the most unguarded unlike the magistrates. I feel huge strain while the Parliament, the Cabinet and the media scourge us with undeserved criticism," he pointed out.
Gen. Borissov sounded alarm that no highly responsible officer who left the services of the Interior Ministry was assisted by the state administration. Thus no law-enforcer can be motivated to be honest and to fight corruption, the general reasoned.
There are attempts for legalization of dirty money through Bulgaria's privatization deals and within the tourism sector as well as there are attempts to bribe journalists and whole media. This is what Bulgaria's financial investigation chief Vassil Kirov said at the conference.