A public official in the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra exchanged his properties for state-owned lands in 2007 and subsequently continued to rent them out for his own benefit.
The official in question is Tundzhir Rejeb, an expert at the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra. According to his job description, it was his responsibility to provide information about the available state-owned land plots that are offered for rent so that the state could benefit from them. However, it is clear that he did not fulfill this obligation.
An inspection of the Cadastral Information System shows that the properties are still recorded as private and remain owned by Tundzhir Rejeb. This indicates that someone did not submit the necessary information to reflect that the lands have now become state-owned.
The Agency for Geodesy, Cartography, and Cadastre in Silistra explained that the information about the lands was submitted by the Regional Directorate of Agriculture – Silistra in 2018. “If there are errors, they are due to incorrectly submitted information from the regional office.”
A contract for the exchange of real estate was signed between the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, represented by Georgi Georgiev—the director of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture and Forests in Varna—and Tundzhir Rejeb from Silistra. At that time, Rejeb, besides being a private individual under the contract, was also working as an expert in the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, a position he still holds today.
With the contract, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, acting through his representative, transfers the ownership rights of a state-owned real estate property. This property consists of a total area of 88 decares of agricultural land—part of the State Land Fund—in the territory of the village of Bliznatsi, near the coastline by Varna. According to a licensed appraiser, the property was valued at 60,606 BGN.
In exchange for the transferred property, Tundzhir Rejeb provides the state with six of his properties, located in the territories of six settlements in the Silistra region. These include a 15-decare plot in the town of Alfatаr, and five plots in the municipality of Kainardzha: a 17-decare plot in the village of Svetoslav, a 26-decare plot in the village of Dobrichanka, two 25-decare plots in the village of Voinovo, and a 15.5-decare plot in the village of Posev. All these properties, totaling 123 decares, have been evaluated by a licensed appraiser at a total price of 62,012 BGN.
The the contract have declared in writing that at the time the contract comes into force, the properties will not be leased. Furthermore, the contract obliges Tundzhir Rejeb to register it with the registration office where the properties are located, which he has accomplished within the stipulated timeframe.
Despite this, with the exception of the property in Alfatаr, the “exchanged” lands, which should be state-owned, have been used as private properties and rented out to agricultural producers as private land, for which rent has been collected for years.
On the website of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, there is a public register called “Use of Agricultural Lands.” This register publishes the allocations of plots for cultivation that agricultural producers manage each year, both through private lease agreements and from the State Land Fund. Among these are the properties described in the exchange contract between Tundzhir Rejeb and the state from 2007. The registers indicate that these properties are being rented out as private land.
The lands in this list are marked with their cadastral numbers, showing that they have been leased to specific agricultural producers. One of them is Todor Todorov, the regional coordinator of GERB, who cultivates the “exchanged” plot of 17.589 decares in the village of Svetoslav, in the municipality of Kainardzha.
The 17-decare plot in the village of Svetoslav has been cultivated as private land by agricultural producer Todor Todorov, including last year.
If these properties had been genuinely exchanged and utilized by the state, they would have been part of the State Land Fund (SLF) and would have been rented out to agricultural producers through auctions conducted by the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, with the rental fees being collected by the state.
Whose Property Are the Lands and Who Rents Them Out?
The register “Use of Agricultural Lands” from the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra provides information only about the tenants—the one party in the contract—and indicates that the lands were leased out as private land. Lease agreements have not been registered with the Registration Agency because they were typically made for one year. However, other agreements for longer periods have been registered, thus making both parties involved visible.
Such is the lease agreement signed by Tundzhir Rejeb with “Bulgarimex” LLC from Sofia, which is registered with the Registration Agency in Silistra. With this agreement, the landlord Tundzhir Rejeb provides for use a property of 15.5 decares for a period of seven years, starting from the 2008/2009 agricultural year, for an annual rent of 10 BGN per decare. The property is located in the “Mezar Bozhu” area in the village of Posev, Municipality of Kainardzha. This is one of the exchanged properties in the contract with the state from 2007. Therefore, during this period, the property should have been state-owned and leased out through an auction by the regional agricultural directorate.
The same 15-decare property in the village of Posev also appears in the lists of users in the agreements for the allocation of plots published by the Regional Directorate of Agriculture for 2021. It is again being used by “Bulgarimex” LLC, but allocated to another producer. In 2023, the property was once again being cultivated as private land.
In a similar manner, the other properties included in Tundzhir Rejeb’s exchange agreement with the state have been leased out.
He has also participated as an expert in bidding committees that allocated state lands for rent. Given this situation, Rejeb was fully aware of what needed to be done with state-owned lands according to the provisions of the law.
Regarding contract and the lands themselves, we reached out by phone for a comment from Tundzhir Rejeb. He responded that he does not remember the exchange agreement but promised to check and call back to clarify the situation. However, no call was received by the time this text was published.
The name of the public official became known in relation to an inspection and subsequent report from the Inspectorate at the Ministry of Agriculture in 2022, concerning reported violations during the bidding procedures conducted under the director of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, Ginka Kateva. These violations also became the subject of an investigation by “Za Istinata.” A primary violation in this case was that information about agricultural lands from the State Land Fund had not been disclosed prior to the bidding procedure for 2021-2022, as well as that agricultural producers had utilized state lands without a tender.
After her reinstatement as director, Ginka Kateva initiated a counter-inspection, which served as a pretext to dismiss most of the staff at the directorate. However, she retained Tundzhir Rejeb in his position. His name and signature appeared on a petition from the employees of the regional directorate supporting Ginka Kateva’s actions during a critical moment for her.
