Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov is yet to be named prime minister-designate and present a line-up of his cabinet, but he has already launched his first salvo against the looming inheritance from the outgoing government.

During the campaign for general elections, Borissov vowed to re-assess late appointments to key jobs in the public administration made by Sergei Stanishev’s cabinet. Having won the elections, the first target of his ire was the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), accusing the outgoing government of handing rich contracts to the company’s five board directors.

The contracts are said to be for five years and feature a clause that directors cannot be sacked without a three-year notice, the media said. If sacked without prior notice, the directors would have to be paid compensation equal to three years’ salary.
Borissov said on July 7 that his cabinet would seek to cancel the contracts and that he would lodge a complaint with the Supreme Prosecution of Cassation to declare them void.

Earlier in the day, World Bank economist Simeon Dyankov, who is set to become the finance minister in Borissov’s cabinet, told state television BNT that the outgoing government tried to cement the current board and that the contracts were signed on July 3, two days before Parliament elections.

Outgoing economy minister Petar Dimitrov said that the contracts were signed in March 2009 and that there was no such clause in them, Dnevnik daily said.
BEH was set up in September 2008 to consolidate the state-owned assets in the energy sector - including mining conglomerate Mini Maritza Iztok, gas distribution firm Bulgargaz, thermal power station Maritza Iztok 2, nuclear power plant Kozloduy and power grid operator NEK - into one holding company.

Through NEK and Bulgargaz, the holding would hold majority stakes in the future nuclear power plant at Belene and several big pipeline projects, including Bourgas-Alexandroupolis and the Nabucco and South Stream gas pipelines.

The five board members are Dimitrov’s former deputy Galina Tosheva, who was appointed interim chief executive of BEH in September 2008; Bulgargaz board member Dimitar Dimitrov; Bulgargaz chief executive Dimitar Gogov; former general secretary of the Finance Ministry Tencho Popov; and the executive director of the state-owned nuclear waste storage company Boris Pekov

Their appointments in January caused little surprise, with one opposition MP predicting four of the five directors a month earlier. Ever since the cabinet announced plans to set up the company in February 2008, opposition parties have accused the government of playing political games with the country’s energy sector. The centre-right Blue Coalition, widely seen as Borissov’s natural ally in forming the next cabinet, even campaigned on the promise to dismantle the holding.

The Economy Ministry has consistently rejected the opposition’s claims, saying that the goal was to create a company that would have the resources to undertake big projects in the sector. Despite the ministry’s protestations, newspapers speculated that three appointments - Tosheva, Dimitrov and Gogov - were dictated by the Socialists, the senior partner in the outgoing three-way ruling coalition, while the National Movement for Stability and Progress was behind the appointment of Popov.