The Municipal Inspectorate in Sevlievo has a new chief this month. This is the department responsible for ensuring legality and order in the municipality. However, the winner of the position, Ali Aliyev, is known for quite the opposite. His name is associated with a series of scandals, making his appointment appear cynical.
Who is Ali Aliyev?
Aliyev has been the chairman of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) in Sevlievo since 2009 and has served three terms as a municipal councilor. He is a former director of the State Forestry in Sevlievo, from which he was dismissed due to a violation of the legal requirement not to participate in private company ownership while holding a public position. This company appeared on the National Revenue Agency’s (NRA) list of debtors with unpaid public obligations exceeding 5000 BGN, lacking assets that could be secured and having no claims from banks or third parties. According to “Dnevnik,” the total obligations of the company by the end of 2013 amounted to nearly 33,000 BGN. It is now difficult to determine the status of these debts, as the NRA optimized its information in November 2020, excluding individuals with deregistered entities from the lists of debtors.
For Aliyev’s company, ET “Bara-Ali Aliyev” (now deleted), the NRA is pursuing cases for inaccurate income declarations. A May 2014 decision by the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that Aliyev “did not submit annual income tax returns, or reported income and expenses from the activity of firewood harvesting and sales incorrectly.”
In 2014, Ali Aliyev was appointed director of the “Bulgarка” Nature Park, which sparked public protests. Many compared the scandal to the appointment of Delian Peevski as head of the State Agency for National Security (DANS) due to Aliyev’s ownership of a wood harvesting company, creating a clear conflict of interest given that “Bulgarка” contains the largest beech forests in the country.
On July 12, 2016, Ali Aliyev’s right to forestry activity was revoked by order of the executive director of the Executive Forest Agency, a decision still visible on the agency’s website. The reasoning cited three penalties imposed on Aliyev for violations of the Forestry Act and its subordinate legislation within the preceding year. A week later, following this order, his control over forestry marks was also revoked.
Ali Aliyev’s name also appears in the declassified archives of State Security. He was recruited in April 1985 by the Sofia City Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-State Security as an agent under the pseudonym “Victor.” He collaborated with the Student City district and the Sixth Directorate of State Security. At the time of his recruitment, Ali Aliyev was 28 years old. In December of last year, the GERB party strongly opposed the appointment of former agents to leadership positions, which in GERB-ruled Sevlievo seems not to be an issue.
How Aliyev Was Selected as Chief of the Municipal Inspectorate
The selection process is not publicly available. The only information found on the municipality’s website is an advertisement for the position published on November 26 of last year. There are no records of candidates allowed for interviews or any subsequent information revealing the number of applications received, the candidates who progressed to an interview, or the composition of the committee that ranked the participants. It is possible that Aliyev was the sole candidate, but this remains unconfirmed due to the lack of transparency.
Meanwhile, the Sevlievo municipality’s website features numerous job postings, with some including published minutes from the assessment committee’s meetings, indicating that such records might be publicly available, though this is not the standard practice. It remains unexplained why minutes from the competition for a sweeper are published, while those for the chief of the Municipal Inspectorate are not shared.
Given the difficulty in understanding the criteria for determining which competitions are transparent and which lack information, “Za Istinata” sent questions to the local municipal administration requesting a copy of the minutes from the competition for the head of the Inspectorate. The deadline for responses is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Ali Aliyev has assumed office, despite circumstances that raise doubts about whether he is the person the citizens of Sevlievo can trust to uphold public order and legality. This is not the first time that the municipality of Sevlievo, governed by GERB since 2011, has tolerated Aliyev and the DPS in particular.
In the autumn of 2019, one of the first decisions of the newly elected Municipal Council was the appointment of Ali Aliyev as chairman of the permanent Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, effectively placing him in control of ensuring legality in municipal forests and the management of municipal timber harvesting. At that time, however, Ali Aliyev was linked to a timber harvesting company, which he claimed had nothing to do with him.
The company in question is “Yasmin Nine,” registered in the name of Aliyev’s mother. In the summer of 2019, it won a tender for the extraction of timber from municipal forests, amounting to just over 2,000 cubic meters to be harvested in the heart of the Stara Planina region, specifically within the territory of the State Hunting Enterprise “Rositsa” in the Lugat area. According to the tender documentation, the timber to be extracted was not intended for sale but solely for transport to a temporary storage facility. The contractor was set to receive 25,600 BGN excluding VAT. “Yasmin Nine” was the only company to participate in the tender.
In a statement to “Za Istinata” (“For the truth”) Ali Aliyev denied having any connection to the company, confirmed it was his mother’s, but stated it was represented by a proxy. Nonetheless, Aliyev seemed well-informed about the tender results, explaining that it was not for purchasing timber but for harvesting firewood, which would be delivered to municipalities and kindergartens in villages. He noted that the financial interest in such orders was minimal and suggested researching why other companies do not participate in these tenders.
As the head of the Municipal Inspectorate in Sevlievo, Aliyev is directly subordinate to Ahmed Mehmedov, the deputy mayor for security in the municipality and a DPS activist. Whether this connection is coincidental remains a matter of speculation. It could be viewed as a gesture of gratitude from the mayor of Sevlievo for the support from the DPS in 2019 when voters, traditionally aligned with the DPS, cast their ballots for him. Ivanov remarkably received backing from villages with ethnic Turkish and Vlach populations, which also accounted for the majority of reports regarding vote-buying, although all were unproven.
