- France was a favorite destination for business trips of the former mayor of Blagoevgrad Atanas Kambitov and people of his team.
- Due to the lack of reporting documents, what exactly was done there is not clear.
Photo: Personal profile in Facebook
Nearly BGN 87,000 were spent within two years from the budget of Blagoevgrad for trips abroad of the former mayor of the city Atanas Kambitov and people from the “inner circle” in his administration and this amount does not include per diem that were paid to them.
The purpose of the trips were popular tourist destinations. All costs for airplane tickets and accommodation were paid from the budget of the municipality through its company “Blagoevgrad Fest” EOOD, but it is not clear at whose invitation they were carried out and what work was done.
To Paris, through Lille, Bordeaux and La Rochelle
According to the information that “Pro Veritas” received under the Law for Access to Public Information from the municipal company “Blagoevgrad Fest” that was closed in January, 2020 the former mayor of the city Atanas Kambitov and his team made 19 business trips in 2018 and 2019.
The first trip is to France, between 24 and 28 April 2018, and the information does not specify the city-ultimate destination of the business trip. It is only clear that the cost of the trip was BGN 16,000 including airplane tickets and accommodation. This business trip was carried out by Kambitov, Hristina Shopova, who at that time was Deputy Mayor for Culture and Humanitarian Activities, the then Chairman of the Municipal Council in Blagoevgrad Radoslav Taskov, Antonia Metodieva – Director of the Legal Directorate of the Municipality and Desislava Bineva, who was not an employee of the municipality. In addition to the funds for accommodation and tickets, the four of them received BGN 685 each as per diem and Bineva – BGN 342. The reason for the business trip, according to the data provided by the company, is “Organizing a Francofolies Festival”.
In July 2018, just a few months after the first secondment, the same team, supplemented by Ivan Ikonomov and Hristina Trifonova, who are also not municipal employees and their participation in the delegation is unclear, left for Bordeaux and La Rochelle, where they spent 6 days in the period 12 -17 July 2018. The purpose of the trip is to participate in workshops to organize the festival “Francofolies”.
La Rochelle is the largest French city at the Atlantic. It is an elite place for tourism, often defined as more beautiful even than Nice and Cannes. The stay and the trip of the Blagoevgrad delegation there costs nearly BGN 22,000 as it is shown by the official information of “Blagoevgrad Fest”.
In November 2018, the Deputy Mayor of Blagoevgrad Hristina Shopova also visited Lille in France. Her stay there lasted 4 days, and together with the airplane tickets that were paid by the municipal company, it cost the taxpayers BGN 3.3 thousand. In Lille, Shopova took part in a meeting of the International Association of Francophone Mayors.
The last trip to France of Atanas Kambitov and his deputy Hristina Shopova is to Paris. They went there in September 2019, and for 3 days the money paid by “Blagoevgrad Fest” is nearly BGN 8,300. The information for the trip states again as a purpose “Participation in workshops to organize Francofolies”.
Rome was also among the places visited by Kambitov’s team. Almost BGN 5,000 were spent on this trip. The reason for this business trip is “Participation of a mayor and a team in a conference”. However, the information provided does not specify who, apart from the former mayor of Blagoevgrad, was included in his “team”.
The other trips of Kambitov and those close to him are to Skopje, Zagreb, Belgrade, Thessaloniki, Drama, Osijek and Cakovec, which are significantly cheaper business trips than those to France and Italy.
The missing information
An information note provided again by “Blagoevgrad Fest” contains information on the amounts that the employees of the “inner circle” of Atanas Kambitov and the chairman of the Municipal Council in Blagoevgrad received as “per diem” for each of the listed trips (see the document attached below).
However, this information does not contain reports on what was done during the business trips in question. The director of the Financial Policy Directorate, Kostadin Shumantov, explained that he has only orders and per diem. However, the Ordinance on business trips and specializations abroad explicitly states the following:
“Within 10 days after their return, the persons or heads of delegations seconded by different departments shall submit a report on the work carried out to the corresponding manager who issued the order or to an official designated by him.”
This violation is serious and in the most general case, those who have committed it are responsible for their actions. But the responsibility is also for the one who signed the business trip orders.
Art. 40 of the Ordinance on business trips and specializations abroad states explicitly:
“Officials, who in violation of the established procedure, have issued an order for a business trip or specialization abroad, as well as seconded persons who have guiltily failed to fulfill their obligations under the business trip or specialization, shall reimburse the illegally spent funds in BGN and in foreign currency for the business trip or specialization. Foreign currency funds are reimbursed in their BGN equivalent at the central rate of the Bulgarian National Bank at the time of reimbursement or at the time of their spending, if it is more favorable for the department or the enterprise”.
Furthermore, when these trips are paid for by taxpayers’ money, the accountability should be complete and transparent. Otherwise (as in this case) there is a suspicion that these are expensive excursions that the people from the local government in Blagoevgrad have “given themselves as a gift” at the expense of the citizens.
The question remains unclear whether the employees of the municipality of Blagoevgrad made their trips by invitation or on their own initiative, as such information is also not available in the archives of the local administration. This is important because it would change the conditions of business trips and the amount of daily subsistence for the business trips that are received from the municipal budget. According to the already cited ordinance:
“When the host party provides full board in kind, the sent persons are paid 30 percent of the amount of the due per diem (daily subsistence allowance). In the event of a partially covering of certain costs the daily per diem shall be reduced by the amount of those costs (…)”.
The information for the per diem paid by the municipality of Blagoevgrad leave the impression that the travelers have received the full amount of their daily allowance, which suggests that they did not have invitations for their visits, nor they were official guests. So the question remains who they met during their travels and what work they did during their business trips.
Business trips to organize a festival that will not take place
Five of the business trips described in the information from “Blagoevgrad Fest” were related to working meetings and the organization of the Francofolies Festival. This includes the last one, which took place in September 2019 year in Paris. Atanas Kambitov and Hristina Shopova visited the French capital for working meetings related to the organization of the Francofolies Festival that will be held in the summer of 2020.
However, the festival will obviously take place in Sofia, after the former mayor of the city Atanas Kambitov left his office after the elections in the fall of last year. In December, 2019 he posted in his Facebook profile a photo with the director of the Festival Gerard Pont and information about the meeting at which their future joint projects were discussed.
Photo: Profile in Facebook
“Yesterday I welcomed very dear guests, my French friends Gerard and Fred. We talked, laughed, and recalled funny moments from the history of “Francofolies. Blagoevgrad” and drew future projects. I thanked them for the friendship, for the partnership, for everything they did for “Frankofolies. Blagoevgrad” and for Blagoevgrad to be part of the cultural calendar of the world. I wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”, Kambitov wrote.
Two days later, Pont himself wrote unequivocally on his social media profile: “Return to Bulgaria and good news – the Sixth Edition of “Francofolies” will be held in Sofia, 19 and 20 June 2020, together with Atanas Kambitov, organizer of the Festival in Bulgaria”.
Shortly afterwards, in a telephone conversation between Pont and the new mayor of Blagoevgrad Rumen Tomov, it became clear that it was the former mayor and Hristina Shopova who initiated the meeting and the idea of holding the festival in Sofia. Gerard Pont also explained that they were ahead of the new mayor’s team, and the deadlines they had for organizing the festival in Bulgaria required a contract to be signed to ensure the performers on time.
In January this year, the last surprise came regarding the Festival. It turned out that the former deputy Mayor Hristina Shopova has become its Director.
So it turns out that public resources have been wasted on several expensive trips that are not related to Blagoevgrad and its citizens.
