Bio pumpkins of innovation. On departure, GERB created an agency for the draining of billions

In 2016, one of the largest draining schemes emerged through European support – along with the financing of tomato and cucumber cultivation, subsidies were also given for the production of one of the easiest crops to grow such as pumpkins at 470 euros per hectare. Eventually, after receiving the funding, the vegetable was abandoned to rot in the field.

A check of projects funded under the Operational Program “Innovation and Competitiveness” 2014 – 2020 (OPIC) showed that both rotting pumpkins in the field and “innovations” after payment the subsidy sink into oblivion. By law, detailed information on all EU-subsidized projects is published in the Information System for Management and Monitoring of EU Funds in Bulgaria or IMIS for short. BIRD.BG maintains a search engine in this public electronic register and it has shown that for none of the projects for the development of “innovative” software the final product of the investment can be found. Market logic dictates that everyone strives to advertise their production in every possible way so that it can reach the maximum number of consumers. In corrupt practices, the logic is exactly the opposite – as little information as possible to be available in the public domain. UMIS itself is not a national initiative to clarify the absorption of European subsidies, but to meet the minimum EU requirements for publicity.

The published information is so general that it can in no way be determined whether the funding allocated is real or dozens, if not hundreds of times, inflated. An example of such a project can be given for the construction of a mobile “platform”. A mobile application with registration and authentication of users, with a database and chat for two of the most common operating systems Android and iOS can be made literally in one beer time, if you use a template project of React Native and instead of a backend to use a ready-made platform like Firebase – write one code for all mobile operating systems and not even write anything as server logic. Something that can be done by a programmer with not much experience. On the other hand, for a mobile application with the same functionality, if you use the programming languages of the individual mobile operating systems – Java or Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS (which implies much higher code quality and more stable operation of the application) and creating a server with a separate authentication and a database using technologies such as graphQL may require hiring three teams and working for several months.

From the formal descriptions in UMIS it can in no way be understood which of the above two ways of development was used, but between BGN 200,000 and BGN 1,000,000 million for a project leave unknown for what. In order to conceal the drain, beneficiaries are in no way required to publish the mobile applications on Google Play or the App Store. And while Android apps can also be distributed as separate files, because of the high security requirements of iOS, no applications can be installed that have not passed Apple’s control, except for testing purposes and for an inner circle of testers. Giving public access to applications would fulfil one of the basic requirements for all European projects, namely the use of the investment as intended for at least 3 years from the realisation of the investment. Also of interest is the fact that information is also not available in UMIS regarding the exact place (office, etc.) where the beneficiaries carry out their activities. An example of the non-fulfillment of this requirement under another program is the scheme of “mothers-in-law” in which guest houses were used as personal villas.

Since the projects receive public funding – money from ordinary taxpayers, the developers of the “innovative” software should be open source and a reference to this code should be necessarily indicated in the UMIS. Tesla founder Elon Musk, for example, has publicly accessed the software of his very billion-dollar product in https://github.com/teslamotors. Seeing the program code and the history of its development, it can immediately show the real work on the project, its complexity and whether it is just copied 100% for free.

And since the “ladybugs” of GERB have spread like cancer in the body of the state administration and the inspections of various ministries and agencies have been proven fictitious, chemotherapy to combat this scourge remains the public control by individual citizens, investigative media and organizations. An example of the provision of such control can be taken from the obligation the protocols of the commissions for conducting public procurement to be published on the official websites of the contracting authorities (Art. 22b, para. 2, item 7 of the Public Procurement Act, in force as of 01.10.2014, adopted during the caretaker cabinet of Georgi Bliznashki, which shows that the only socially useful legislative initiative takes place during caretaker governments). This now requires committees not only to write related sentences, but also to motivate their decisions.

And when it comes to agriculture, another detail about financing “innovation” emerges. In 2016, Bivol published an investigation into how the State Fund Agriculture, with the help of an external evaluation committee, cut off the financing of some projects and left the inflated prices to others. Then at the beginning of the next day, the then Executive Director Rumen Porozhanov urgently stopped the public procurement for the renewal of the contract of the evaluation committee minutes before DANS invaded the fund. As before, external evaluators act in the Fund and now in the Ministry of Economy. And while the previous commission only ruled on the amount of funding, now external evaluators determine which project is a “global innovation” and respectively whether to receive funding at all, as there is no money for non-globally innovative projects. Everyone can see for themselves by consulting the UMIS what a global innovation the already funded projects are.

Instead of conclusion. In the summer of 2020, at the height of the protests against the Borisov 3 cabinet, the then Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev decided to collect all innovations under the wing of a new State Agency for Research and Innovation at the Council of Ministers – DANII, as innovations have so far been funded under various programs. In short, instead of innovation being made in the name of improving the respective sphere, be it agriculture, medicine, art, education or any other field, innovation becomes an end in itself or another instrument for draining billions of euros, abandoned to rot on the leadership of European projects after funding is absorbed.

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Разследващата журналистика е разузнаването на гражданите. BIRD се финансира от дарения. Ние не публикуваме реклами. Не получаваме държавни субсидии. Не разчитаме на грантове. Финансирането чрез малки дарения от читатели е гаранция за нашата независимост. Включете се, за да продължим да разкриваме злоупотреби и да държим отговорни властимащите. Използваме Вашите пари за хонорари на журналистите, командировки, изграждане и поддръжка на нашите информационни системи, такси за фирмени и имотни регистри у нас и по света, придобиване на техника и специално оборудване, осигуряване на нашата безопасност и други важни работни мисии. Важно: Ако дарявате всеки месец това ще ни даде възможност да планираме и организираме нашата работа. Благодарим Ви! Нас ни има, защото Вас Ви има!

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