site.btaMinistry's Audit Unit, Prosecutors Probe Bonuses at Road Infrastructure Agency


Bulgarian Regional Development and Public Works Minister Ivan Ivanov has ordered an audit of the way performance bonuses were formed and paid to Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) staff between January 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, Ivanov's Ministry said on Wednesday.
The news comes in the wake of an open letter that the non-governmental Road Safety Institute (RSI) sent RIA Management Board Chair Yordan Valchev, demanding explanations about the grounds on which BGN 2,274,654 were paid in bonuses to 174 department heads, sector heads and unit directors at the Agency and its Management Board.
Also on Wednesday, the Sofia City Prosecution Office told BTA that it had given the Anti-Corruption Commission two months to probe the incentives scheme. The check was assigned on July 1, after the prosecutors were alerted in June that there was reason to believe that a criminal offence was involved in the RIA bonus payments.
Ivanov ordered a team of his Ministry's Internal Audit Directorate to check whether the statutory requirements and internal rules were complied with upon the formation and payment of bonuses to RIA staff.
Earlier in the day, RIA said in a press release that the bonuses paid to employees at the Agency's Central Administration, the regional road administrations, the Institute of Roads and Bridges and the National Toll Administration were determined in compliance with the regulatory framework concerning remunerations of state administration employees.
The RSI argued in its open letter that "the distribution of millions of leva as bonuses sounds like a mockery of society and the victims of road traffic accidents," considering that the national road network is in an extremely bad condition, that roads are not repaired for lack of maintenance contracts, and that Bulgaria is persistently among the EU Member States with the highest road death toll while the RIA does not react to reports about dangerous road sections.
Later on, RIA sent a letter to the media, arguing that the RSI was circulating "manipulative allegations".
/KK/
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