Almost BGN 5.5 million has been allocated to the municipality of Dryanovo in the 2026 municipal capital program published in the draft state budget for next year. The program is publicly available on the website of the Ministry of Finance, but a check by Za Istinata found that it is not up to date.
The planned investments for Dryanovo are for fifteen infrastructure and improvement projects aimed at improving the road network, the urban environment, and public infrastructure. However, among the projects that the Ministry of Finance plans to finance, there are some that have already been completed or are nearing completion, and even the mayor of Dryanovo, Trifon Panchev, is puzzled by what is in the plan for next year.
Designing a finished project
The most striking case is the allocation of around BGN 100,000 for the design of a wastewater treatment plant for the town of Dryanovo and a collector leading to it. This project will be completed by the end of November 2025 or, in the worst case, by the end of the year, Panchev assures us.
A contract for the design has been signed with a contractor selected following a tender procedure announced and conducted by the Municipality of Dryanovo. The contract was signed on October 1, 2024, with a company under the Obligations and Contracts Act, PSOV Dryanovo Building Eco.
Its value is BGN 430,000, and the deadline for completion is 150 calendar days, starting from the date of delivery of the letter of assignment. Half of this amount has been transferred to the municipality, and if the project is reported as completed by the end of the year, this means that the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works must transfer the remaining half to the municipality of Dryanovo. However, only half of that amount, i.e. BGN 100,000, has been allocated in next year’s budget. It is not yet clear whether this means that the Municipality of Dryanovo will not be able to pay the contractor.
And the wastewater goes into the river
The fact that the project for the future treatment plant is ready does not mean that the time is near when Dryanovo’s wastewater will no longer be discharged into the river.
The town’s sewerage network has a total length of just over 20 km and is a 100% combined system. This means that domestic, industrial, and rainwater wastewater is collected and transported in a single pipe network. The network was built in the 1980s.
All wastewater is collected in a collector that runs through the lowest part of the town on the left bank of the Dryanovska River and directs the water to the future wastewater treatment plant. There are seven storm drains along the route, which in dry weather carry the water directly into the river. This must be stopped, says the mayor of Dryanovo, but even he is not sure when construction of the treatment plant can realistically begin. However, he says he is determined to see it happen by the end of his term in office.
Several neighborhoods have a partially constructed sewerage network, with the collection collectors discharging directly into the Dryanovska River. The population in neighborhoods with predominantly single-family housing discharges wastewater into individual septic tanks, which creates a risk of groundwater contamination. In rarer cases, mainly in newly built residential buildings, wastewater is discharged into watertight cesspools, which are serviced by specialized equipment. The collected faeces are also discharged through the existing sewerage network into the Dryanovska River. All this clearly indicates that the construction of an urban sewerage system and a wastewater treatment plant is extremely urgent.
And a “dormant” project worth millions
Incidentally, the municipality’s website contains information about an identical project, but from 2011. It has obviously remained unfulfilled and is also for the construction of an urban wastewater treatment plant. It also includes the reconstruction of the water supply system in Dryanovo. It was presented at a press conference, from which photos are available. According to the information accompanying the photos, on March 8, 2011, the Ministry of Environment and Water and the Municipality of Dryanovo signed a contract for grant funding under the Operational Program “Environment 2007-2013.”
The deadline for the completion of this mysterious project is nearly four years, and its cost exceeds BGN 24.5 million, of which almost BGN 5 million is national funding.
Despite extensive research, “Za Istinata” was unable to find any information about what happened to this unbuilt treatment plant, given that there was obviously money for it, and why we are now conducting new procedures for the construction of the same plant.
