Bulgaria caretaker cabinet names new utilities regulator chief
Bulgaria’s caretaker government said on September 3 that it has appointed Svetla Todorova as the new head of the State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (SEWRC), replacing Boyan Boev, who agreed to resign last week after being asked to do so by the Economy Ministry.
Boev is the latest of a number of senior officials in the state administration, appointed under the now-departed government of Plamen Oresharski, that have been replaced by the caretaker cabinet since it took office in August.
Todorova has a career spanning 35 years working in the energy sector, including 15 years in the regulatory field. A member of SEWRC between 2001 and 2005, she was last a consultant on a European Commission project on electricity market regulation in Ukraine, the government’s media service said.
The caretaker cabinet also appointed replacements for two other members of the commission – Lilyana Mladenova, who agreed to resign like Boev, and Elenko Bozhkov, who declined to do so and was sacked by the government for alleged conflict of interest because he was still a member of an NGO in the energy sector. In their place, the cabinet appointed Evgenia Haritonova and Kostadinka Todorova.
Haritonova has served in senior management positions at state electricity utility NEK and was a member of SEWRC in 2010/12 prior to her appointment as deputy economy minister in the Boiko Borissov cabinet. She also served as head of the regulator between March and June 2013, when she was sacked by the Oresharski administration.
Kostadinka Todorova was head of the energy strategy and, later, energy efficiency departments in the Economy Ministry between 2002 and 2010. She was last a senior expert with the energy policy committee of the Bulgarian Parliament, the government’s media service said.
(Photo: greenhitma/sxc.hu)
