Absurd methodology, assessing the total cost of construction works by 40 points, while unit prices for the same construction works – by 50 points – this is the key to win the bid in the tender for the a section of “Hemus” highway by the consortium “HVP Yablanitsa” DZZD, which includes companies associated with the ruling party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) and controversial lawmaker and businessman, Delyan Peevski.

The methodology involves a double evaluation of the same thing – the cost of construction of the highway. The seemingly meaningless indicator of unit price has played a key role in the settlement of the contract in the public tender, as shows Decision № 1 from January 9, 2017, of the “Road Infrastructure” Agency.

The Commission that has examined and evaluated the bids has compared all unit prices and required pursuant to Art. 72, Paragraph 1 of the Public Tenders Act, a justification for each unit price that is 20% lower than the average price of the proposals of the other participants.

So, of all 11 participants, the Commission has eliminated three participants because of irregular documents. In the second stage, the elimination of Peevski’s competition has been done on the basis of justifications by all participants. Six bidders have been eliminated for subjective reasons, including the one with the lowest offered price. Only two offers have reached the final ranking. Predictably, the contract has been won by “HVP Yablanitsa” DZZD that includes the associated with GERB company “Hydrostroy” JSC, the company of Delyan Peevski “Vodstroy 98” JSC and “Patstroy Burgas” Ltd., as it has offered a price that is with 20 million levs lower than that of the second finalist.

0% Unforeseen costs

One of the reasons that “HVP Yablanitsa” DZZD has stated in its rationale is 0% unforeseen costs. The Commission has accepted this reasoning, although it is contrary to the financial proposal in which the participant has pledged 2.6 million levs without VAT for extra work.

Although, the estimated contract value is 80 million levs and the bid of “HVP Yablanitsa” DZZD is one of the lowest, at 54.99 million levs, experience has shown that “unforeseen circumstances” arise during highway construction, and, in violation of all public works contracts, they are paid by the contracting authority. This is what happened with the “Lyulin” (+48 million levs) and “Trakiya” (+ 21 million levs) highways.

Contracts only for our people

The original tender for the “Hemus” highway for nearly 1 billion levs was won by “GP Group” linked in media reports to Valentin Zlatev, head of the Bulgarian subsidiary of Russian oil giant “Lukoil” and “PST-Group”, which is said to be connected with Delyan Peevski and First Investment Bank (FIB). In mid-December 2015, Bivol published information that “PST Group” is the property of the destitute Cypriot national Niki Tenekedzi, who had bought the business from another Cypriot – Georgios Georgiou – the dummy figure of the owners and majority shareholders in FIB, Tseko Minev and Ivaylo Mutafchiev.

At the end of 2015, Bivol published statistics, based on data from the Public Procurement Agency and the Commercial Register, from which it became clear that companies connected with MP Delyan Peevski have won contracts for nearly 900 million levs. After deducting the shares from participation in consortia, the total amount is 733 million levs, of which 432 million have been obtained through European funding. These data were sent to the European Commission.

In March 2016, Prime Minister and GERB leader, Boyko Borisov, announced the termination of the infamous public order for the “Hemus” highway. “I have checked somewhat who’s who,” he said then, on his way back to Bulgarian from a visit to Brussels. His sudden move was motivated by “hovering doubts” that oligarchs are behind the companies that have won the contract for 1 billion levs.

The award of the new contract for “Hemus” to the same #WHO confirms once again that Borisov distributes the most attractive procurement only to people in whose loyalty he has no doubts.

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