A proposal which was submitted to the former government by the Privatization Agency requested that each of the agency's employees receive an average bonus of 6,000 leva.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Nikolai Vassilev, under whose authority the PA falls, revealed the existence of the proposal on Sunday. The PA claimed that their budget maintained a surplus of 950,000 leva, which the agency wanted to disperse among 156 employees, including secretaries, janitors, and others.

Vassilev refused to submit the proposal for granting the bonuses to the Cabinet, pointing to the necessity of an overview of the results achieved by the PA. "It is not possible for the employees to receive bonuses of about 6,000 leva each, without any actual deals being completed," he said. "When we sell several BTCs and Bulgartabacs then we could think of bonuses."

At a press conference in Varna on Sunday, Vassilev announced that an audit has begun of all the companies that are run by the Ministry of Economy. Another matter subject to investigation is how the Ministry's employees that represent the state in the boards of these companies have taken care of the state's interests.

Vassilev cited as an example Alen Mak, a cosmetics producer, where Ana Popova, a Ministry employee and state representative in the management of the company, was dismissed because she didn't protect the interests of the state at a board meeting last week.

Meanwhile, the members of the new Supervisory Board of the PA have requested information about all deals the PA has concluded since the beginning of 2001, and those which are to be finalized this year, announced Petko Nikolov, chairman of the board on Monday. The board members held a meeting to acquaint themselves with the PA structure and functions. Levon Hampartsoumian, the former executive director of the agency, also attended the meeting.

Nikolov said that privatization in Bulgaria should not be carried out at any cost. Each privatization deal submitted to the PA Supervisory Board must accommodate and protect the interests of the country. The PA concluded 16 privatization contracts from January 1 to July 6, four of which were for the sale of self-contained units.

On Monday, the tender organized by the PA to sell the unfinished editorial office building of the Rodina printing and publishing complex failed again. None of the three companies that expressed interest in the building presented an offer.

Tender documents for the sales procedure were bought by Overgas Holding of Yambol, Artek A&K of Dubai and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Bulgaria. The starting price was set at 7.5 million leva.

This was the PA's second attempt this year to privatize the office building. The agency invited two public tenders, on May 28 and 31, as part of the first procedure but no bidders emerged. A new auction was scheduled for yesterday. According to the terms of the tender, the building will be sold in an all-cash deal.