Caretaker Culture Minister Exposes Flagrant Abuse of EU Funds, Corruption in Ministry

Caretaker Minister of Culture Velislav Minekov has delivered on his promise, given on Friday to Sasho Dikov, host of the EuroDikoff talk show, to give a mind-blowing news conference. The minister of culture gave startling evidence exposing corruption of his predecessors. The ministry has proved to be a gold mine for a number of personalities, in his words. Minekov explained that he could not afford to do things that Vezhdi Rashidov and Boil Banov, who were previously culture ministers, did.

"There are startling revelations, incredible abuses of EU funds. "Somehow they vanished into thin air, or were "absorbed", as they say, nearly 4.5 million euros from the entire project for the renovation of Largo, an architectural ensemble in central Sofia designed and built in the 1950s," said the caretakerminister of culture.

He cited a classified OLAF report that also contained recommendations.

"The recommendations are to hold three ministers and one mayor accountable," Minekov added. In his words, these funds should be restored.

The Minister commented that he would report to the Bulgarian and European Public Prosecutor's Office about the missing money. "I have doubts about what the result will be with our prosecutor's office, but very soon, in my opinion, this prosecutor's office will have to work at full steam," Minekov added.

You've heard about the case of police officer Angel Papalezov. I'm pretty clear why all this happened to him. What we saw was a comic story with coins replicas. "Angel Papalezov has been followed. Since I assumed office, I have had several meetings with him and we thought about setting up an expert team for cultural values. He has been intimidated," the minister explained, commenting that he would not allow to...