Irina Bokova Registered Private Company in UNESCO-Owned Apartment in Paris Mind the horns!

According to the official website of the French Commercial Court Registry Agency – INFOGREFFE, the French company BOKOVA IRINA MITREV GUEORGIEVA was established in January 2016.

The company cannot be found if the search is done with BOKOVA as keyword but it does appear if one of the other names is used. The subject of the company’s activity is “housing rental”. The status of the company is equivalent to the Bulgarian ET – sole trader.

The company headquarters’ listed address is the office apartment provided free of charge by UNESCO to its Director-General, Bulgarian politician Irina Bokova. It is located at 11, PLACE VAUBAN 75007, PARIS 7, in the heart of one of Paris’s most prestigious neighborhoods.

Information about Irina Bokova’s company in the French Registry Agency

When your landlady is UNESCO’s boss…

As revealed by an investigation by Bivol, Irina Bokova and her husband, Kalin Mitrev, do own at least one home in France, located near the Bulgarian Embassy on Général Camou Street (in the modern building pictured in the headline).

The apartment was purchased in 2011 for EUR 1 million. At that time, the average cost per square meter in this neighborhood was between EUR 11,000 and 12,000, which means that the apartment has an area of about 90 square meters. Such apartments in this neighborhood are currently available for rent for over EUR 3,000 a month.

The French property register is not a nationwide one and there is no possibility of online search, so it cannot be easily established whether Bokova and Mitrev own other homes in France to be offered for rent through this company.

An investigation into Bokova and Mitrev’s property revealed that they own apartments in Paris, London and Manhattan with a total value of USD 4.7 million, while their known earnings amount to USD 2.7 million.

Recent publications about the Azerbaijani Laundromat, implicate Kalin Mitrev in receiving income from companies linked to the Baku regime as a consultant for hydropolitical projects.

Doing business in violation of the rules?

Official United Nations (UN) and UNESCO documents clearly define the rules and regulations for their staff’s outside occupation or employment and use of property and assets of the international organization. The situation with Irina Bokova’s private company raises serious doubts about at least two violations of these rules.

First and foremost, the Director-General of UNESCO is not entitled to receive income from sources external to the Organization as recorded in the 2009 UNESCO Staff Regulations and Staff Rules and the 2014 Standards Conduct for the International Civil Service, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013.

Bokova is empowered to grant herself this privilege, but that would be a drastic conflict of interest.

Another problem is that according to UN rules, the use of the property and assets of the Organization can only be done for official purposes. The use of the UNESCO-owned apartment as headquarters of a private company is a breach of the rules of the international organization.

Neither UNESCO’s press secretariat nor the Ethics Office responded to Bivol’s request to comment on the situation with Bokova’s company.