The municipality of Ruse has fulfilled its promise to install lightning protection systems with advance action at six sports facilities in the city. This became clear after a response to a request from “Za Istinata” under the Access to Public Information Act.
The facilities in question are the Ruse City Stadium, the Yalta and Lokomotiv sports complexes, the tennis courts in Youth Park, the Lipnik Hostel, and the building of the former Asen Zlatarov Technical School for Grain Processing and Storage.
The installation of lightning protection equipment cost the municipal budget 58,000 leva. The amount was voted on by the municipal council in early 2024 after a child was killed by lightning during a soccer training session at the Danube sports complex a year earlier.
The Danube sports complex was given by the municipality on concession in 2018 during the term of the previous mayor, Plamen Stoilov (GERB), to RDS Invest EAD, owned by Ruse doctor Simeon Simeonov.
An investigation by “Za Istinata” revealed that on the day of the tragedy, the Danube sports complex did not have a functioning lightning protection system, despite the concessionaire’s claims to the contrary to local and national media.
Coincidentally or not, nine days after the publication of “Za Istinata,” the director of the municipal enterprise “Sportni Imoti” Lachezar Ivanov sent a letter to the mayor of Ruse Municipality, Pencho Milkov (BSP), informing him of the faulty or completely missing lightning protection at all municipal sports facilities.
Ivanov’s letter to Pencho Milkov revealed that the Municipality of Ruse had in fact been informed about the lightning protection problems as early as 2021. However, timely action to secure the sites was only taken after the tragic death of a child in the summer of 2023.
According to documents obtained under the Access to Public Information Act, the municipality used the same company to prepare the technical passport for the lightning protection installations at all six sites. That company is Dunav Consult BG EOOD.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the death of an 11-year-old child on the unsecured football field at the Danube sports complex has been going on for more than two years.
