site.btaID Contract Caused No Damage, Peevski Activated His Bludgeons on Me, Ex-Caretaker Interior Minister Demerdzhiev Says

In a response to a statement of the prosecuting magistracy, which charged him with mismanagement involving BGN 1,482,218, former caretaker interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev wrote on Facebook Friday that "when you expose the influence of MRF – New Beginning’s Delyan Peevski in the Interior Ministry and the cover-up around smuggling, and when you force him into silence, unable to answer even the most basic journalistic questions, he reacts in the only way he knows how: by activating his bludgeons through the institutions he controls".

The prosecution service claims that on June 2, 2023, the caretaker minister failed to exercise sufficient care in managing the property entrusted to him by signing a document to increase prices for activities subject to a contract for the development of a Bulgarian ID system. This violated the Public Procurement Act and the Ministry's internal rules for public procurement management.

"After his minister Kalin Stoyanov proudly posed with the new ID documents, which helped us get into Schengen, someone suddenly decided that signing the contract had violated the law. The contract had to be adjusted due to the long delay between submitting bids and actually signing it, caused by ongoing court battles. Interior Ministry departments worked for nearly six months to finalize this, and the result was cheaper, much more secure ID documents for Bulgarian citizens," Demerdzhiev reacted.

He also noted that the contract was pre-checked by the Public Procurement Agency at his request, and its legality was confirmed.

"When you are shooting in the dark, trying desperately to hit someone, do not forget – those shots can ricochet. And in this case, the ricochet will hit Peevski’s minister [Kalin Stoyanov]," he warned. "If there were really issues with how the contract was adjusted, then why did Kalin Stoyanov personally submit a statement to the Public Financial Inspection Agency saying everything was in order and then proceed to authorize all the payments," Demerdzhiev asked rhetorically.

"If there’s mismanagement here, which I firmly deny, then it was committed by the person who made the payment after deciding the contract was suddenly illegal,” Demerdzhiev added.

Demerdzhiev had a clear message for Peevski and what the former caretaker minister calls Peevski’s "bludgeons": "If anyone thinks this will shut me up, they clearly do not know me. On the contrary, I will keep exposing all their shady deals and illegal actions, and I will keep urging civil society to stand up against them. Because in a state run by its citizens, those sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act for grand corruption do not get to run the country or its institutions – they get investigated".

Demerdzhiev referred to Peevski, who, in 2021, was designated by the US under the Global Magnitsky Act as an oligarch who "has regularly engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society". Peevski is challenging the designation in a US court. His lawyers argue that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by their client.