Galabovo Municipality – supplier of imported waste for burning in Brickel thermal power plant

The TPP Brickel associated with Hristo Kovachki had to accept the foreign waste free of charge

Three public procurements of the Municipality of Galabovo are for the delivery of imported waste to Brickel. The management of the municipality organizes the path of the “fuel” from Port Bourgas to the furnaces of the TPP. The fees for the recovery of the garbage had to be absorbed by the municipality, and the TPP would accept up to 100,000 tons of RDF-waste per year free of charge. This initiative of the municipality has started in violation of several laws and without creating a waste operator enterprise.

We contacted the mayor of Galabovo for comment and explanation. Nikolay Tonev, but he did not answer our calls, any of his mobile numbers. We were able to contact the Deputy Mayor. Gulcan Myumyunali Durmush – Shakir. She answered our call, but when she heard that we were asking her about public contracts for the import and transport of waste, she interrupted the conversation with the excuse that she was driving and would call later. He no longer answered our calls. We also managed to contact the Chairman of the Municipal Council in Galabovo – Svetla Zaharieva Boyancheva. She told us that she did not remember about public contracts related to waste and had to check what it was about. Strange amnesia given that the public procurements in question are the largest awarded by the municipality of Galabovo. Mrs. Boyancheva also stopped answering her phone after we called her the next day.

The Facts

In a contract from 2019 between the Municipality of Galabovo and Brickel EAD the thermal power plant undertakes to accept RDF-waste delivered by the municipality free of charge for 1 year. The contract provides for the acceptance of 100,000 tons, which will be used for the purpose of obtaining heat and/or electricity. In a word, burned. This contract creates bewilderment because there is no way for the municipality of Galabovo to generate such quantities of fuel from waste.

Quietly, in 2019, the municipality of Galabovo announced three public procurements, preceded by several other procedures. They prove that the municipal leadership planned to bring waste classified as RDF from Port Bourgas to the Brickel site. There is no doubt that the waste is foreign because it is intended to arrive in Burgas by ship. From the documentation it is clear that the municipality thinks long-term – for more than one year. 300,000 tons are planned to be transported and “utilized” in the Brickell furnaces in 36 months.

At the beginning of April 2019, the municipality first held market consultations with the subject: “Transportation of waste for the needs of the Municipality of Galabovo“. In the consultations yThere are two companies. “Eurotrans 2007” and “Plamen Petkov – Bultrans“”. They offer a price of 14-15 cents for the transport per ton of waste per kilometer. The sole trader Plamen Petkov turned out to be nothing at all. He has extensive experience with public procurement. The BIRD.BG register shows that to date the legal entity has revenues of almost 2 400 000, within the framework of 12 public procurements. About 2 million come from TPP “Maritsa East 2”. The rest is calculated by the State Psychiatric Hospital in Radnevo. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, the sole trader is stuck, but has received aid from the state BGN 450,000, our corona subsidy tracking tool shows.

After the consultation with the successful carrier, on April 15, 2019, the municipality announced an open procedure for the selection of a contractor for the activity “Transportation of waste for the needs of Galabovo Municipality”. The amount is, to put it mildly, large-scale Against the backdrop of the municipal budget. As we said, however, Svetla Zaharieva Boyancheva does not remember her.

The competition is attended by 2 companies – the general partnership Ice-A Georgiev and others and Dila Ltd. The first company has a modest biography. Ice-A Georgiev and Co., as part of DZZD HEBROS-ECO, are a contractor for a public transport contract awarded by the state-owned TPP 2 amounting to BGN 1 616 717. Manager of the company is Anton Ivanov Georgiev

Through another of his companies – Stonehenge 68, which participates in DZZD Construction MI2, Georgiev won a public procurement in the state-owned TPP worth BGN 913,725.00. The man is also engaged in agriculture.. His farm produces over 8,000 liters of milk according to BFSA data. The relations between Anton Ivanov Georgiev and Galabovo Mayor Nikolay Tonev are on high and low tides. Between 2003 and 2009, when Georgiev is a municipal councilor, and Tonev is already a mayor, there are conflicts between the two. Later, things seem to be going well in 2019. Georgiev won a public procurement for 7.5 million, but on November 23, 2020, an agreement was signed between the municipality and Ais-A Georgiev and Co. with which the contract was terminated. The municipality somehow failed to provide funding under the contract concluded between the parties a year earlier. Georgiev told BIRD.BG that he did not perform any activities under a contract that had been terminated and had not transported a kilogram of waste. Today, Georgiev is considered a major figure among the Republicans of Tsvetan Tsvetanov, and Nikolay Tonev is on the MRF list for Stara Zagora.

The municipality also has an earlier procedure related to the delivery of waste. It has the subject: “Selection of a ship agent serving ships at the Port of Burgas EAD and providing intermediary services with customs and other state authorities in connection with the carriage of cargo by sea transport”. The Shipping Agent shall be responsible for assisting in carrying out port, customs and other formalities on arrival on the ship, shall arrange for payments for port, customs and other charges and charges. The shipping agent shall provide floating vessels and tugs, pilots, if necessary, and a port pier, and shall assist in the immediate commencement and speediest execution of loading and unloading operations. This order testifies that the waste is expected to arrive by sea at Port Bourgas. There they landed through the waste from Italy for the TPPs Bobov Dol, Sliven and Brickel, which are connected to Kovachki.

The estimated value of the contract is 5 838 000. The winner of the competition is Sea Link Shipping Ltd., the company earns with a price below the estimated – BGN 5 595 000 . The manager of the company is Panayot Vasilev Zolumov, who is obviously a close relative of the late Executive Director of Port of Burgas Krastan Vasilev Zolumov. Sea Link Shipping Ltd. won the public procurement in the competition of Cosmos shipping. The latter are often the winner, alone or through consortia, for the absorption of public funds through public procurement. . Like the transport order, the one for a shipping agent was terminated in 2020, by agreement. Again, due to lack of funding.

Galabovo plans to earn serious sums from waste incineration in Brickel. While the municipality is preparing to transport RDF to the thermal power plant, an open procedure is carried out with the subject: “Engineering – preparation of a detailed design, execution of construction works of a separating installation for household waste, delivery and installation of the necessary technological equipment and exercise of author’s supervision during construction” worth BGN 1146550. excluding VAT. The winner is DZZD BCFI. The association offers a price that is slightly below the estimate. BCFI has already been a contractor for two previous public procurements of Galabovo Municipality . One is for the overhaul of the Vocational High School of Energy and Electrical Engineering for BGN 1,095,974, the second is the repair of the street network in the municipality for BGN 583,333. The main partner in the consortium is Fintrade Engineering . The company is a winner or partner in 8 public procurements worth BGN 3 610 203. He is a partner Galabovo Municipality and a European project administered under OPE to reduce the levels of pollutants in the ambient air and reach the established standards for harmful substances. The municipality is financed with BGN 150,293 under this measure.

According to the Commercial Register, the sole owner and manager of Fintrade Engineering is Dimitar Shterionov Djundzhurov. He is the son of Shterion Djundzhurov, currently head of the regional unit of CEM in Burgas and former Deputy Chairman of the Council of Sofia. Director of the Civil Protection Service towards Ministry of Emergency Situations. It existed during the Triple Coalition. It is run by Emel Etem and has been the source of numerous scandals. For a short time Etem’s deputy is Delyan Peevski.

Initially, in Fintrade Engineering Dzundzhurov’s partner was
Borislav Krasimirov Kirov
He is considered very close to the mayor of Primorsko Dimitar Germanov. In “Flagman” the young man is described as the rising star of GERB – Burgas. . In his second term, as a city councilor, he was already deputy. Chairman of the Municipal Council in Primorsko. Kirov is also related to Yordan Hristov, the new husband (at least formally) of Miss Bikini from Barcelona. He is the manager of Komunaltechmash-97-M, together with Hristov. The company has 20 public contracts worth BGN 2 116 729. . He is also associated with Primorsko, who acquired Primorsko through the #БарселонаГейт “Sports Properties”, where he is a procurator. He is also on the board of SI Build Engineering, where the shareholder is Perla Tourist of Hristov. His sister Ruzha Krasimirova Kirova, according to the Commercial Register, holds 0.5% of the capital of Perla Tourist. S Phoenix Consult Engineering She applied for a public procurement contract won by DZZD Rositsa – Gorna Oryahovitsa. In the winning alliance participates BKS Gorna Oryahovitsa, which in turn partners with Fintrade Engineering in DZZD BCFI. As we said above, the union is the winner in two tender procedures of the municipality of Galabovo. BKS Gorna Oryahovitsa, in turn, has an impressive biography of won public procurement – 60 worth BGN 45,591,436.

Illegal sharing of profits with the polluter

If it implements its plans to use 300,000 tons of waste in 3 years, the municipality of Galabovo will provide revenue of 29 million with minimum profit values per ton of accepted waste or 44 million with average values. In both cases, 14-15 million expenses, part of which investment in tangible fixed assets, would be justified. At the expense of the health of the local population and the rule of law.

A similar import of RDF justifies the hypothesis of serious violations of the Waste Management Act. Article 98 of the normative act explicitly states that “shipments of waste to the Republic of Bulgaria, intended for incineration or co-incineration with energy recovery for each plant, in quantities for the respective calendar year, exceeding in total half of the annual capacity of the plant specified in the permit or integrated permit” are prohibited. The idea of the legislator is that in the disposal and recovery of waste, at least 50% of the capacity of the capacities is occupied by waste of Bulgarian origin. It is not clear that the waste supplied by the municipality as local or imported would be calculated in Brickell’s balance. Apart from this, it is difficult to accept as legitimate the desire of the municipality to develop commercial activities with RDF without having established a waste management enterprise and without it having an integrated waste operator permit.

Photo: Itso Hristov, Facebook group “Galabovo in the 21st century – GENOCIDE!”

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