Vesselin Georgiev, the former executive director of Bulgaria's National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF), said on February 5 that he resigned from the job to put an end to the media speculation, but claimed he had done nothing wrong during his term of office.

Georgiev told private channel bTV that he was not hiding from the journalists, but that prosecutors and his colleagues advised him to refrain from public appearances that could influence the ongoing probes at the fund.

The fund has been dogged by criticism in January 2008, first for its slow response time in cleaning snow off two major roads, followed by Kapital weekly's allegations that Georgiev was in conflict of interest when he assigned public procurement contracts on behalf of the fund to the company managed by his brother, Emil Georgiev.

Then on January 24 2008, police detained two employees of the fund on charges of taking bribes. Georgiev refused to comment on the last case, but blamed the media for blowing the issue out of proportion, which eventually led the European Commission to ask Bulgaria to freeze all European funding for road infrastructure projects.

He also accused the media of biased reporting and factual mistakes concerning himself and his brother. Neither of them ever owned the companies, as alleged by some reports, while his brother was a member of the board of directors, he said.

Georgiev refused to admit he was in conflict of interest and used the Finance Ministry's ambiguous statement on the issue as an additional argument in his defence. The ministry had said that "based on the results of its probe one can conclude that Vesselin Georgiev could have found himself in a situation in which a conflict of interest would arise or manifest itself."

"I can guarantee that there has not been a single defrauding of government funding - not in this case, or any other contract signed during the time I was the fund's executive director," Georgiev told bTV.

The truth of his claims will be ascertained by a second finance ministry probe, which will have to determine whether the public procurement laws were breached by Georgiev in assigning public procurement contracts. The ministry's inspectorate has one month for the investigation, given the long period of time Georgiev spent in office, 17 months, that is covered by the probe.