Bulgaria’s anti-corruption body finds no conflict of interest in Finance Minister case
Bulgaria’s anti-corruption body has completed its investigation into the living arrangements of the country’s Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and concluded that he was not in conflict of interest, public broadcaster Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) reported on March 1.
Last year, allegations in local media claimed that Goranov was living in a large apartment in a “luxury residential building” that was made available to him free of charge by a “Bulgarian businessman.”
At the time, Goranov denied any wrongdoing and said that the apartment was made available to him by a close relative and said that he would fully co-operate with the investigation ordered by the country’s Prosecutor-General Sotir Tsatsarov.
The anti-corruption and asset forfeiture commission’s inquest found that Goranov and Ivan Sariev, the businessman in question who is Goranov’s godfather, were not related parties under the legal definitions in Bulgaria’s anti-corruption law, BNR said.
Furthermore, there was no indication that Sariev had won any public procurement tenders, thus there were no grounds to start conflict of interest proceedings against Goranov, the investigators concluded, as reported by BNR.
(Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov photo: minfin.bg)
