Bulgaria Prosecutor-General asks Parliament to lift immunity of socialist MP
Bulgaria’s Prosecutor-General Sotir Tsatsarov has filed a formal request to Parliament, asking for the House to lift the immunity of socialist MP Svetla Buchvarova-Piralkova as part of an investigation into alleged gross mismanagement, the prosecutor-general’s office said on March 21.
The prosecutor’s office said that it has collected evidence that Buchvarova-Piralkova intentionally signed a deal in 2009, when she was chairperson of the managing board of the Agricultural Academy, a government-funded research institute, that generated caused damages of up to 1.3 million leva (about 678 300 euro) in lost revenue for the academy.
The contract for the use of the academy’s state-owned agricultural land, signed with a private company, had an annual rental price of 0.18 leva a hectare at a time when average annual rental prices in the areas where the academy was located ranged between seven leva and eight leva a hectare, the prosecutor’s office said.
Buchvarova-Piralkova signed the contract without the approval of the Agricultural Academy’s managing board, the prosecutor’s office said.
Buchvarova-Piralkova was chairperson of Parliament’s agriculture committee in the 42nd National Assembly, at the time of the now-departed Plamen Oresharski administration, when she was at the forefront of socialist attempts to pass legislative amendments that would make it more difficult for foreigners to buy land in Bulgaria.
(Bulgarian Parliament. Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
