Schrödinger’s boss: The new head of the IAEA was both on a driving course and at work. He was dismissed in 2018.

Georgi Palagachev, who took over as Director of the Executive Agency Automobile Administration (IAA), was dismissed in 2018 disciplinary by the same agency for scandalous motives. As head of the Control and Statistics Department at the EAA, he was found to have violated labor discipline – driving a driving course during working hours. The court upheld his dismissal, but also examined the version that Palagachev had driven the course fictitiously without attending classes.

According to available documents, Palagachev was both on a driving course and at work, like Schrödinger’s cat. He was both trained in driving for a C+E license and was working in his office as head of department at the EAA. Palagachev’s courses were at the Vassilevi Brothers Training Center.

Palagachev appealed the order to the Sofia City Administrative Court, but the court dismissed his appeal. Subsequently, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the decision of the lower court. In two separate decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court, this case is described in detail. First, by decision 5393 of the three-member panel of the Fifth Division of 07.05.2020, Palagachev’s dismissal was confirmed. Subsequently, a five-member panel by decision 2500 of 23.02.2021 cemented it. In the motives of the compositions is described the paradox of the case – on documents. Palagachev did tireless work in the office of the Executive Agency and raised his qualifications on a course.

Naturally, the court also takes into account the hypothesis that Palagachev has not attended the course, that he has trained fictitiously, which means that he has not disturbed his working hours. In this case, however, an employee of the EAA, who is responsible for the books, “equipped” himself with a C+E category booklet, without having put in the necessary training hours. In the second hypothesis, Palagachev simply strayed from work to drive. The slacking from work naturally did not mark it in the logs and did not check his card at the exit. In itself, this is a violation that is enough to punish with dismissal, the court argues.

Undoubtedly, the first hypothesis that exactly this person, a responsible factor in the EAA, has taken a fictitious booklet in a fictitious way, with fraud, is much more disturbing because it is an example of severe corruption. But the court clearly allows such a hypothesis, which also weighs heavily on his dismissal after an IAA committee appointed. It is also a fact that after the dismissal, Palagachev has appealed twice, but the court has not accepted the objections and has confirmed his dismissal. Who knows why, but it was this man who was chosen to head the IAA.

Initially, Georgi Palagachev headed the Automobile Administration Directorate in Plovdiv. Then he took the lead of the entire Executive Agency Automobile Administration. We contacted Georgi Palagachev for comment, and he explained to us that it would be a violation of labor discipline if he answered us without sanction of the press center. We found ourselves in a kind of paragraph 22 – if Georgi Palagachev had explained to us how and why he violated labor discipline in 2018, this would have been a violation of labor discipline now.

But no matter how “disciplined” Palagachev is now, his recruitment to a managerial position in the state administration is compromising for the state administration itself.

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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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