site.btaPlanned Purchase of Religious Icon Stickers and Magnets Sparks Dispute between Current and Former Interior Ministers

A public procurement procedure in which the Interior Ministry planned, among other things, to buy 30,000 religious icon stickers and magnets and hand them out to drivers in a national road safety campaign for children has sparked a dispute between the current interior minister and one of his predecessors.

The incumbent Daniel Mitov told a briefing on Wednesday that Boyko Rashkov, who held the post between May 2021 and August 2022, approved a plan to purchase various items for the campaign and ordered the administration to carry it out. “The icons were on the list,” Mitov said, presenting a copy of the document to the journalists.

Mitov said that Rashkov, in his former capacity as Interior Minister, decided that the icons would be funded via the Guarantee Fund, which helps traffic accident victims receive compensation. “It was his choice, and he had the right to make it. The problem is not in the procedure but in their failure to stand behind their governance decisions,” Mitov commented.

Discussing a similar public procurement procedure launched earlier this month, Mitov said the administration simply did the same thing that it had done under Rashkov and it was just a reflex. Mitov vowed to “stop what Rashkov started” and to order a probe. He said he will ask his own deputy Lyubomir Yosifov why he greenlighted the new procedure.

Earlier in the day, Rashkov denied having launched any public procurement procedure for religious icons while serving as an interior minister.