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The new ministers and conflict of interest - report
18:13 Thu 24 Apr 2008 - Petar Kostadinov
 
Newly appointed Defence Minister Nikolai Tsonev <br />Photo: Velko Angelov
Newly appointed Defence Minister Nikolai Tsonev
Photo: Velko Angelov

On April 24 2008, the day when Parliament approved changes to the Cabinet, Bulgarian-language media published articles suggesting a conflict of interest in the work of two of the new Ministers.

Sega daily quoted information from the corporate public information system DAXY according to which newly appointed Agriculture and Food Minister Valeri Tsekov, from the quota of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), was on the management board of D Prime company.

The company is owned by Denis Hasan, son of Hasan Hasan, who is deputy head of the National Road Infrastructure Fund. D Prime works in the field of demolition and excavation works and, according to Sega, it has been very successful in absorbing EU funds.

When Hasan Hasan filed his declaration on conflict of interest he had stated that neither he nor any of his relatives owned shares in companies, Sega said.

According to Sega Tsekov, he and his predecessor, Nihat Kabil, had owned a company together.  

Econnature Group was registered in 2002 with Tsvetanov, Kabil and Stefan Dimov as shareholders. Kabil was manager of the company until February 2005, Sega said. He became minister six months later. 

On April 23 2008 the newly appointed Defence Minister Nikolai Tsonev gave a news conference where he commented on media stories about his alleged conflict of interest. Prior to his appointment as Minister, Tsonev was head of the Ministry's Social Activities Agency.

Currently, he has shares in a number of companies, one of which had supplied the army. Bread producer Nilana, in which Tsonev has a 30 per cent share, had supplied the army with bread between 2004/06, Tsonev himself said as quoted by mediapool.bg.

He said that he would leave all the companies in which he owned shares in order to avoid a conflict of interest. Tsonev would not say if the fact that Nilana had supplied the army during his time as head of the Agency was a conflict of interest.

 
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