Former customs chief Emil Dimitrov said on Sunday he had been offered 600,000 leva ($270,000) a year not to interfere with the British consultancy firm Crown Agents, selected to advise the customs reform.

In an interview with Trud daily newspaper, Dimitrov said his successor Asen Asenov would get the money, as it was one of the key reasons to assume the position of Customs Agency head.

Dimitrov criticised the Government's customs policy and said that the Finance Ministry's estimations for revenues from customs duties were very unrealistic, as they provided for a 96 per cent increase. Dimitrov also made personal attacks against the economic ministers, accusing them of corruption and promoting their companies in privatisation procedures.

Earlier, on Saturday, Dimitrov told Darik Radio the new group which ruled Bulgaria at the moment was as he called it the "Jupiter" circle. The name comes from "yupi" and the stellar symbols only add melody to the name, Dimitrov said.

He qualified the contract with Crown Agents as illegal because the Public Procurement Act had not been observed. In addition, shorthand reports from a closed-door Cabinet sitting were cited in it. At that sitting, Finance Minister Milen Velchev had been explicitly warned by lawyers that the contract was illegal but, nevertheless, had signed it.

"The real managers of the Bulgarian customs are Crown Agents," Dimitrov said. In his view, Bulgaria missed a unique chance of establishing its own modernised customs' system using European Union funds.

Last Wednesday, Parliament approved the contract with Crown Agents. The voting was accompanied by a lot of controversy, as the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the United Democratic Forces (UtDF) insisted that the issue be discussed with open doors, but permission was denied because of secret clauses in the contract. Finally, the contract was voted on without the participation of the opposition.

Earlier last week, in a congratulatory letter to the new UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) leader Nadezhda Mihailova, Sergei Stanishev, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), suggested that they exchange views on an expert level on the Government's contract with Britain's Crown Agents.

Mihailova refused and said that if the BSP wanted to go into opposition, it was only natural that it should take its share of the responsibility for the failure of the social liberal model in the past months. "As a leader of the Socialist Party and the Coalition for Bulgaria, you should publicly urge your representatives in the Government and the political offices to quit the executive," Mihailova said.