The local initiative group “Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan” will evaluate and finance projects under the Rural Development Programme. But yet when the group was founded suspicions emerged that only associations and businessmen close to the Dryanovo Mayor Miroslav Semov were included in the group.
In the next two years, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the non-governmental sector in Dryanovo and Tryavna, can receive a grant of BGN 7.3 million from the Rural Development Programme. The money is a help for the so-called “Community-led local development”. To this end, in 2016, Local Initiative Group (LIG) was established “Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan”. It will have to manage the funding but also to supervise the implementation of the projects that will be supported. But yet when it was founded, there were suspicions that the group includes only associations and businessmen close to the Dryanovo Mayor Miroslav Semov.
At the end of November 2015, Semov and his colleague from Tryavna, Doncho Zahariev, decided that the two municipalities should apply for funding under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. Leader of the project is Dryanovo. Local communities must elect two partners from the non-governmental sector and two from the business. At the convened meeting in Dryanovo there are about 30 businessmen and members of civil associations. By voting, the participants identified as project partners, which preceded the establishment of Local Initiative Group, “Faith” Foundation, Community Center “Dryanovska Probuda-2008”, company “D company” and the farmer Ivo Balevski. At the beginning of December 2015, the municipal councils in both cities approved the election.
But only a year later it turns out that three of the elected will not be partners of Dryanovo Municipality.
Personally and urgently
On November 28, 2016, the constituent meeting of the association LIG “Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan” was scheduled. The announcement was published in local media on the last working day of the week, and the assembly itself is scheduled for Monday – only three days later, two of which not working days. Invitations are sent personally to the potential founders.
The short deadline is the reason that the meeting is attended by representatives of the non-governmental sector without the mandatory power of attorney to vote on behalf of their associations. And this automatically deprives them of the right to participate in the work of the association, says Mariana Veleva, secretary of the “Varban R. Genchev” Community Centre in the village of Tsareva livada. Because of the short deadlines in which the meeting was convened, the Board of Trustees of the Community Centre failed to gather to authorize her in the legal order. “When I arrived I was amazed by the full hall, Veleva says. How have so many people understood? There is no way unless someone has not told them beforehand. ” Due to the missing power of attorney, she didn’t become a founder of the local initiative group.
The missing
50 representatives of companies and organizations attended the meeting, and 37 of them signed the Founding Protocol. But the representatives of the “Dryanovska Probuda 2008” Community Centre are not among them. According to the chairman of the centre Yordan Mluzev, the reason for this is that the text of the protocol was not given to him for signature.
Manol Petrov, who is representing another Community Centre – “Nadezhda-1925” in the village of Turkincha, is among the members of the constituent assembly. He claims he had perfect documents and his participation in the event was duly recorded. His name, however, is also missing in the founding protocol of the Local Initiative Group. “I was on the first line, and the mayors of Dryanovo and Tryavna stood opposite me,” says Petrov. Then they explained to me that they were looking for me to sign but they did not find me and took the Protocol to the court without my signature. “
The farmer Ivo Balevski is not present at the constituent assembly as he is abroad. There were no representatives from the company “D Company” because at that time there was a restructuring of its ownership and management.
All this gives grounds to Yordan Mluzev and Manol Petrov from the Community Centres in Tsareva Livada and Dryanovo to claim that the mayor Miroslav Semov alone organized the presence of companies and associations in order to guarantee support in the management of the future initiative group.
Members, but some other time
“The accusations are groundless and false,” Semov says. The local initiative group “Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan” is applying for European funding and we want everything related to it to be perfect. That is why we had engaged a legal expert with experience in this field and that is not from the area and has no preference for one or another organization. The founding Protocol was drafted namely by her. “
It is about Stanislava Davidova from the Lovech Bar Association. “A manuscript of the meeting was not drawn up, she says. During the founding meeting, the protocol keeper made notes, which later served to prepare the Protocol presented to the court. The “Dryanovska Probuda 2008″ Community Centre refused to sign it, thus losing the founder’s qualities,” explains Davidova. But she thinks this is not a problem, since the inclusion of new members in the association can also happen at a later stage.
To start work on the local Development Strategy, with a decision of the Municipal Council in Dryanovo since the beginning of this year, LIG “Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan” is provided with office space and temporary financial assistance. The resource the group will have to allocate by the end of 2020 is BGN 7.3 million. The region, which is an attractive tourist destination, must preserve its nature, traditions and crafts. Local small, medium-sized entrepreneurs and farmers will also receive financial support in order to develop, invest and be competitive.
The amount is comparable to their annual budgets. For 2017, Dryanovo’s budget is almost BGN 8.5 million leva and that of Tryavna – just over BGN 8 million.
“Everything is legal!“
On the accusations that he wants to control the work of the future Local Initiative Group, the Mayor of Dryanovo Miroslav Semov responds with accusation: “There is abuse from the Dryanovo partners, who contributed nothing to the project. They joined voluntarily and when they failed to consolidate their control over the association, they began to interfere by submitting alerts to ministries and prosecutor’s office. From there, they set up inspections that confirmed everything was lawful”, he said.
Is the founding protocol falsified?
The harmed founders send a complaint to the prosecutor’s office. In the course of the assigned inspection, explanations of 12 people have been taken. The claims of six of them overlap with those described in the complaint. The rest are from the team of the newly established association. They do not deny that at the beginning of the meeting a conflict was ripe for the lack of powers of attorney of some of the participants in it, which left them without the right to vote.
As a handwritten version of a protocol from the constituent assembly is not found, it can not be compared to the one presented to the District Court. And this makes it difficult to establish the truth. In its conclusion from the inspection, the District Prosecutor’s Office in Tryavna refers to the fact that the meeting was attended by a lawyer who observed the lawfulness of its conduct and later prepared and presented the founding documents in the court in the absence of claims by 37 participants in the constituent assembly. Only the representatives of the Community Centres “Dryanovska Probuda 2008” and “Nadezhda-1925” have an objection. For this reason, the Prosecutor’s Office ruled that there was no general offense and refused to form a pre-trial proceeding.
On February 10 this year, the Regional Court in Gabrovo registered “LIG Dryanovo-Tryavna in the heart of the Balkan”. The Managing Authority of the Association includes the two municipal administrations, the Tryavna Foundation “Faith” and the Community Centre of the village Kisiytsi “Saedinenie-1933”. The business is represented by three companies – the “Krisko Sport” registered in Tryavna and Dryanovo “Express BD” and “Niki 75”.
Old acquaintances
“Niki 75” is the sole property of Nikolay Enchev. The company has a wide scope of activity but is specialized in the food trade.
During his campaign for local elections in 2015, municipal councilor Neno Nenov (“Together for Dryanovo” – Reformation Block and Bulgarian New Democracy) sent a signal to the Municipal Electoral Commission that in the shops of the company there is a campaign for supporting the current mayor of Dryanovo Miroslav Semov. According to Nenov’s signal, the agitation was accompanied by the distribution of food packages. The support for Semov by the owner of the retail chain was obvious. During the campaign, and on the election day, his shops were covered with pre-election posters of the current Mayor of Dryanovo.
Nikolay Enchev is the owner of “Niki 75” since September 2015. Previously, the company was owned by his brother Stefan Enchev. The most probable reason for the transfer is the fact that in 2015 he was elected as a municipal councilor in Dryanovo by the “Green Party”.
What is the LIG and why the interest in it is so great?
In their legal form, local initiative groups are associations or foundations pursuing community-based activities within the meaning of the Non-Profit Legal Entities Act. But in practice the groups act as “paying agencies”. They fund projects of local communities – agricultural producers, craftsmen, hoteliers, community centers, municipalities and small producers. The projects are approved by a special commission elected by the Local Initiative Group itself. The idea is good projects that are important for local communities should be funded in order to operate primarily in the field of small and medium-sized businesses. For Dryanovo and Tryavna BGN 7.3 million are a serious sum that would boost the development of tourism in the region. And while the methodology for defining the funded projects is regulated in detail, and the final word is of the State Fund “Agriculture”, it is not excluded that local action groups start working for policies in which they have their own interests.
The good news in this case is that there is money for good ideas. The bad news – the mistrust in the local government could hamper their absorption. The practice so far does not give much grounds for optimism.
