Following an inspection prompted by five complaints regarding the procedures for leasing land from the state land fund, the Ministry of Agriculture decided to annul the tenders due to “serious violations of the procedure.”
This information was conveyed by ministry experts during a meeting with the lessees from Silistra. The report from the inspection has been submitted to the prosecutor’s office, and a copy has also been sent to the Directorate for Legal Activities and European Union Legislation within the Ministry of Agriculture.
In front of the surprised and outraged lessees, the agricultural and food ministry experts did not provide any specific information about the nature of the identified violations or their perpetrators. It was only made clear that the issues with the tender procedures were “systemic,” and the violations had been occurring for years, involving networks of related parties who leased state agricultural lands without ever being subjected to inspection. However, it was not clarified why the tender for 2022 needed to be annulled due to systemic issues and abuses over the years.
A few days after the meeting, it was established that the former director of the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra, Ginka Kateva, had been reinstated as director. She was dismissed at the beginning of this year, but on November 4, she was returned to her position by the acting Minister of Agriculture, Yavor Gechev.
Despite reports of violations, the former director of the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra has been reinstated to her position.
Besides the allegations regarding the report of violations in 2022, “For the Truth” has information from its sources about an investigation by the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture into the tender procedure from 2021, conducted in August and September of this year. This investigation also concluded with a report identifying serious violations, which was sent to the prosecutor’s office. However, the investigation was initiated following a complaint by the last director of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture – Silistra, Radko Slavov, concerning violations during the tender session held last year, where these “systemic problems” were identified. Slavov’s complaint was submitted to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Silistra on June 30 of this year, with a copy sent to the Minister of Agriculture, who directed it to the inspectorate of the ministry, which conducted the investigation and prepared the report.
After becoming the director of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture – Silistra on February 17 of this year, Radko Slavov began inspections of activities within the directorate and identified serious violations in the conduct of tender procedures for available lands from the State Land Fund (SLF). This concerns the leasing of certain plots to the same individuals
privileged individuals, who also turn out to be interconnected.
The tender from March 22 of last year, in which Radko Slavov identified violations, was initiated by an order from the Minister of Agriculture, as stipulated by the Law on Ownership and Use of Agricultural Lands. This order mandated that the directors of the regional Directorates of Agriculture issue their own orders for conducting the tender, along with attached information – lists that have been coordinated with the minister and are an integral part of the order. These lists detail all available properties from the state land fund in the respective region. Copies of these orders are also sent to the municipal agricultural offices, which are required to display them prominently.
In his complaint to the prosecutor’s office, Radko Slavov indicated that in a letter dated June 9, 2021, to the heads of the municipal agricultural offices, the director of the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra, Ginka Kateva, had attached only a partial list of properties from the state land fund for which the Minister of Agriculture had granted consent for a 10-year lease. The letter lacked information about entire land areas in the villages of Polkovnik Cholakovo and Svetoslav in the Kainardzha municipality, and Pop Kralево in the Silistra municipality. Thus, this information remained concealed, and interested parties were unable to apply for their leasing.
In connection with the submitted complaint, a commission from the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture requested a report from the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra regarding all properties that had been coordinated with the minister for leasing after the tender but were not included in the lists attached to the order of the service director, Ginka Kateva. The prepared report revealed that out of the potential participants in the tender for leasing, a total of 243 properties remained hidden.
Of these, 80 are in the area of the village of Polkovnik Cholakovo, 121 in the area of the village of Svetoslav, and 39 in the area of Pop Kralево. There were individual properties in the Dulevo villages of Razdel and Paisievo, as well as in the village of Brenitsa in the Tutrakan municipality.
The commission from the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture requested a printout from the archival system of the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra, which would indicate which of its employees prepared the letter from Ginka Kateva sent on June 9 of last year to the municipal agricultural services. The requested report was supposed to include information about the mandatory lists of properties that were proposed for leasing.
From the provided printout, it was evident that the information regarding the employee who prepared the letter was not entered into the archival system of the agricultural service headed by Kateva. In this case, the commission concluded that the letter was prepared by the person who signed it – Ginka Kateva. Therefore, the inspectorate believes that she unilaterally excluded these properties from the lists sent to the municipal services, which had previously been coordinated with the then Minister of Agriculture.
However, according to the opinion of the commission that requested the report, the one-year period for addressing the violation according to the Law on Public Servants has expired in this particular case, and for this reason,
Ginka Kateva cannot be held disciplinarily accountable.
Due to the absence of the 241 properties listed for leasing, it became impossible for interested parties to participate in the tender for them, concludes the commission.
In his complaint to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Silistra, the former director of the regional agricultural directorate, Radko Slavov, also noted that after conducting his own check on the website of the regional agricultural service, it was established that the lists of properties from the state land fund for leasing for 10 years during 2021/2022 were missing from the website of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture. However, the commission that later conducted the inspection found that a list had been published, but “the Inspectorate does not have the capacity or authority to verify when this list was published and whether any changes or corrections were made.” This effectively means that the list could have been published later, only after the inspections began in connection with the case.
job description of the chief expert at the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, Tunjder Redzheb is responsible for maintaining its website. Therefore, the Commission concluded that the published and now available information about properties available for leasing in 2021-2022 was indeed published by Tunjder Redzheb. However, on June 7 of this year, he went on leave due to temporary inability to work, which lasted until September 19. This timeframe coincides with the inspections at the Regional Directorate of Agriculture, and as a result, he was not asked to provide explanations regarding the published information. This merely indicates that
there were no serious efforts
to contact Redzheb for clarification.
It turns out, however, that Tunjder Redzheb was summoned by director Radko Slavov to the building of the Regional Directorate in Silistra on June 15 of this year, where, in the presence of a representative from the Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Interior – Silistra, he restored archived information stored on his work computer regarding the conducted tenders for lands from the State Land Fund, which had previously been established as deleted from the computer. In this regard, the company “MS Soft” in Burgas, which maintains the software, informed that it was not possible to recover the data in their full volume, as operations had been performed on the disk that overwritten the data, and it was impossible to trace which data had been restored or replaced.
A tender was organized for the
“hidden” properties from the State Land Fund, as established by the commission’s inspection. On July 9 of this year, offers were received for properties in the areas of the villages of Polkovnik Cholakovo and Svetoslav in the Kainardzha municipality. There were two candidates – Todor Todorov, who is not only an agricultural producer but also a former deputy and regional coordinator of GERB for Silistra, and another renter, Neli Valkova. The offers were accepted and registered in the incoming logbook.
Todor Todorov submitted offers for 79 properties in the area of Polkovnik Cholakovo and for 115 properties near Svetoslav. The proposed price was 68 leva per decare for each property, with a starting price of 61 leva. Thus, all the applications Todor Todorov submitted through his authorized representative Nikolai Gospodinov (his driver) were for a total of 194 properties.
The other candidate, Neli Valkova, submitted an offer for the same 194 properties, proposing a price of 65 leva per decare – 3 leva lower than Todorov’s offer. For the properties in the area of Pop Kralево, which total 30, the companies “Sidar” and “Agrostaf” applied.
a total of 224 properties are missing from the lists
sent by the director of the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra to the municipal authorities and, accordingly, were not posted on the bulletin boards to inform all interested parties. The tender for these properties was conducted by a committee appointed by Ginka Kateva. This committee included Tunjder Redzheb, chief expert, and two members – Miroslava Chervenova, director of the “Administrative-Legal, Financial-Economic Activity and Human Resources” Directorate (a municipal councilor from GERB in Silistra), and Ralitsa Dimitrova, a junior expert in the same directorate. The inspectors established that the three had not signed the mandatory declarations regarding the absence of connections among themselves or with a participant in the tender.
Documents for participation in the tender for properties in the Kainardzha municipality were submitted by Neli Valkova and Nikolai Gospodinov, authorized by Todor Todorov. The attendance list for the procedure concerning the properties in the village of Pop Kralево indicates that present at the opening of the tender were: Atanaska Dimitrova and Ventsislava Chakarova. With a power of attorney from Maria Mihiel – manager of “Agrostaf” – two individuals, Atanaska Dimitrova and Ventsislava Chakarova, were present. With another power of attorney from Daniela Dimitrova – manager of the other participant “Sidar,” Atanaska Dimitrova was again present at the tender.
After checking the Commercial Register, the commission found that the company “Agrostaf” was registered in 2002 as a limited liability company by Daniela Yovkova Dimitrova, and later transformed into “Agrostaf” Ltd. with a sole owner, Daniela Dimitrova. Subsequently,
the company changed ownership several times,
until Maria Mihiel became its manager.
Daniela Dimitrova owns 40% of the shares in “Sidar” AD, but the company is actually managed by her father, Yovko Dimitrov. Thus, during the commission’s inspection, doubts arose regarding the connections between the two companies – “Agrostaf” Ltd. and “Sidar” AD, which are the only participants that submitted applications for the same properties in the areas of the village of Pop Kralево in the Silistra municipality.
According to the currently applicable legislation, however, the right to participate in such tenders is granted to individuals, cooperatives, sole traders, and legal entities registered under the Commercial Act, which “themselves or through affiliates as defined by the Commercial Act and related enterprises under the Small and Medium Enterprises Act, engaged in economic activity, cultivate no more than 10,000 decares of agricultural land, regardless of the form of management and type of ownership.”
According to the regulations for the implementation of the Law on Ownership and Use of Agricultural Lands, the tender committee could have gathered evidence regarding the affiliated parties that have cultivated more than the specified 10,000 decares. However, such an inspection was not conducted for the participants in this tender – Todor Todorov and Neli Ruseva, as well as for the companies “Agrostaf” and “Sidar.”
During a check by the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture on the declaration submitted by Todor Todorov, it was established that according to its contents, he does not cultivate more than 10,000 decares either personally or through affiliated parties. However, another check by the commission in the Farmers’ Register revealed that as of January 14 of last year, the former deputy and regional coordinator of GERB for Silistra, Todor Todorov, had utilized 904.8881 hectares of agricultural land during the 2020 – 2021 farming year, which equals 9,048.881 decares.
Furthermore, a report from the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works clarified that Todor Todorov’s mother, Slavka Ivanova, had cultivated over 390 hectares of agricultural land during the same period, or more than 3,900 decares. Thus, the investigation determined that for the 2020 – 2021 farming year, Todor Todorov and his mother Slavka had utilized a total of over
12,949 decares, or 2,000 decares more than the legally established limit.
Under these conditions, Todor Todorov should not have been allowed to participate in the tender at all. Regarding the contents of his declaration for false information, it is the prosecutor’s office that is competent to address the matter.
A ranking protocol for the tender session in which Todor Todorov and his mother participated was prepared. However, it turns out that this protocol is missing from the archived documents of the procedure. During the inspection by the Commission to the inspectorate, there was no evidence presented to indicate that the legal procedure for conducting the tender was followed. The protocol was evidently composed because it is mentioned in the contracts, but then mysteriously disappeared, as noted in the report from the conducted inspection. Consequently, it could not be appealed by any interested parties.
According to information provided by the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra, during the inspection, the members of the tender committee were either on medical leave or vacation, making it impossible for them to be questioned. Moreover, it seems they were not sought in the proper manner.
As previously mentioned in this text, Tunjder Redzheb was on temporary medical leave from June 7 to September 19 of this year. Miroslava Chervenova, a committee member, was on unpaid leave from March 5 to January 19, 2023, while Ralitsa Dimitrova, another committee member, was on temporary medical leave from June 13 to September 14 of this year. Ginka Kateva went on leave from July 21 to August 9, after which she did not return to work for an additional month until September 9, presenting a medical certificate for that period. The recommendation from the ministry’s inspectorate is that this should be disputed.
The rental agreement signed with the top-ranked Todor Todorov is for 188 properties covering a total area of 2,389.942 decares, valued at 162,000 leva. However, it is evident that he also had
issues with payment of the rental installments.
The reports provided by the Regional Agricultural Service in Silistra to the inspecting commission reveal that the second due installment for the 2021 – 2022 agricultural year was not paid according to the signed contract on January 31 of this year, but only on July 20 – a delay of nearly six months. In this case, the contract stipulates a penalty, whereby the tenant owes 0.3% on the unpaid amount for each overdue day. However, such compensation was not applied.
The director of the service, Ginka Kateva, signed a contract for the properties in the area of the village of Pop Kralево with the company “Agrostaf,” which won the tender for them. As mentioned earlier, this occurred without a check for connections with the other company “Sidar” AD and without the lands they leased being published in the lists of properties proposed for leasing. Additionally, the payment documents from the winning participant lack issuance dates, making it impossible to guarantee any potentially unpaid rental installments.
The violations described thus far concern agricultural lands acquired through
tenders that have evidently been manipulated
in favor of certain players. However, the commission’s findings do not end there.
Documents from the conducted inspection indicate that the agricultural lands in the villages of Polkovnik Cholakovo and Svetoslav in the Kainardzha municipality have been used for years without being leased through a tender. In 2006, two lease contracts were signed following a tender procedure between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, represented by Nihat Kabil – at the time, the Minister, and Slavka Ivanova through her representative, and Todor Todorov. The first contract dated December 13, 2006, pertains to “remunerated use of land from the state land fund, amounting to nearly 581.5 decares, in the area of the village of Polkovnik Cholakovo.” This includes 71 properties listed by number and location. During the current inspection, the commission from the Ministry of Agriculture’s inspectorate discovered that the total area of the leased lands stated in the contract following the tender is not 581.5 decares, but over 777 decares. The second lease contract, dated March 12, 2007, is for temporary compensated use of just over 1,554 decares in the area of the village of Svetoslav.
were for a term of 5 agricultural years. They cover a total of 182 properties, with a total area of 2,331.36 decares. In 2011, the terms of these rental contracts were extended by another 5 years, for which annexes were signed.
However, this was done without a tender.
With the signed annexes, the parties agreed to amend the rental payments under the contracts, as well as to extend the term by 5 years. As the end of the extended term approached, on December 8, 2015, Slavka Ivanova (or someone acting on her behalf) submitted a request to the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra expressing her desire to apply a provision from the Law on Agricultural Tenancy, specifically Article 18, paragraphs 1 and 2, which would extend the terms of both contracts again by annexes for another 5 years. The then-director of the service, Georgi Ivanov, sent a letter with the attached request to the Minister of Agriculture, who at the time was Desislava Tandova (GERB). She responded on April 12, 2016 – only four months later – stating that she did not consent to the extension. “The leasing of lands from the state land fund is carried out through a tender or competition under conditions, order, and prices determined in the regulations for the application of the law,” Tandova wrote in her response.
Meanwhile, on February 26, 2016, without receiving consent from the Minister of Agriculture, the director of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra, Georgi Ivanov, signed two new lease contracts with Todor Todorov’s mother, Slavka Ivanova, for agricultural land from the state fund, totaling 2,312.4 decares for a period of 5 agricultural years starting from 2016-2017. These are the same lands that Ivanova had leased under contracts signed following tenders in December 2006 and March 2007. The stated basis for leasing them without a tender is the same article from the Law on Agricultural Tenancy that was contested by Desislava Tandova.
The commission states in the current report that the then-director did not have grounds to sign new contracts, as they could only be extended on that basis – something that was subsequently refused by the minister. The inspection found that a total of 182 state properties were improperly provided to Slavka Ivanova for temporary use from 2006-2007 until the 2020-2021 agricultural year without interruption, 171 of which, or 90% of the total, were provided to her son, Todor Todorov, from 2021 to 2031 through the tender procedure conducted in 2021 and the contract that followed.
The inspectors who conducted the check in Silistra identified another violation concerning the same lands, relating to
improper claims for support to agricultural producers.
In addition to the contracts being signed without the minister’s consent improperly in 2016, they were also misused as a basis for participating in the allocation of areas for use in 2021. In this case, Todor Todorov’s mother submitted an application to the municipal service in the village of Kainardzha, which included all properties from the two contracts. However, their term was five years and expired in 2020-2021. Slavka Ivanova had no legal grounds to use the properties since their term had lapsed, yet she still submitted an application. In this regard, the commission from the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture recommended that the State Fund for Agriculture conduct an investigation into the legality of the application for support for the 2022 Campaign regarding the properties from the two contracts signed with Slavka Stoyanova.
to this, the commission from the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture conducted an inspection at the agricultural service in Kainardzha and discovered serious violations. There, the register of rental agreements did not include the mandatory information regarding the terms of the two contracts signed in 2016. The head of the service was asked to present the contracts in paper form, but they could not be found in the archives. Additionally, incorrect information was entered into the electronic system for registering contracts, and they were recorded as ten-year contracts.
Another detail, which the commission was unaware of, is that one of the employees at the agricultural service in Kainardzha – senior expert Kristina Ivanova – had previously worked for renter Todor Todorov.
In 2014, Todor Todorov issued a notarized power of attorney, authorizing Ivanova to represent him in his capacity as an agricultural producer before the regional and municipal agricultural services in Silistra and other physical and legal entities, allowing her to sign rental agreements on his behalf, etc. In the following years, Kristina Ivanova began working at the Kainardzha service and even became a senior expert. However, her power of attorney, issued by Todor Todorov in 2014, was open-ended. With so many power of attorneys in place, the question arises: who actually submitted the applications
on behalf of Slavka Ivanova and signed the documents?
of the inspection of the tender procedure for 2021, the commission of the inspectorate concluded that the legal procedures for conducting the tender were not followed. However, no penalties can be imposed on the employees of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture in Silistra because the one-year timeframe for addressing the violation has already expired. The report with the findings from the inspection has been sent to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Silistra to be included in the case file regarding Dr. Radko Slavov’s complaint.
The two contracts signed with Todor Stamatov and “Agrostaf” Ltd., along with the commission’s report, have been forwarded to the Directorate for Legal Activities and European Union Legislation at the Ministry of Agriculture. The Directorate is expected to express its opinion on the subsequent actions that should be taken regarding
the two contracts signed in violation of the law
during the tender procedure for the 2021-2022 agricultural year.
These subsequent actions must be undertaken by the director of the RD in Silistra, who is now again Ginka Kateva. When contacted by “For the Truth” for a comment on the report regarding the violations in last year’s tender procedure, she responded that she was unaware of its existence and its findings.
While affected lessees protested outside the Regional Agricultural Service, Ginka Kateva stated to the media that another report regarding violations had been prepared following five complaints to the minister concerning the procedure from 2022, when Radko Slavov was in charge. She added that this report has been sent to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Silistra, and that the tender procedure for this year will be terminated by order of the minister. Chief expert Tunjder Redzheb was not available at the agricultural service to comment on the maintenance of the information databases and the reports of deleted data regarding tender procedures from his work computer.
