The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Grozdan Karadzhov held a meeting today with the entire leadership of the Executive Agency “Automobile Administration”. “We all must apologize to foreign drivers who were extorted in an extremely ugly manner by inspectors of the Automobile Administration. They came to Bulgaria to do their job, and encountered corruption and racketeering. This is unacceptable. We should also apologize to the Bulgarian citizens, because Bulgaria’s name was involved in this scandal,” he stated.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced that following the incident with the two detained inspectors, 4 employees of the Agency will be dismissed - the Director of the General Directorate “Automobile Inspection”, the Head of the Regional Department “Automobile Administration” – Sofia and two members of an internal commission under the Anti-Corruption Act, who have not fulfilled their duties to prevent such abuses. “The responsibility lies not only with the inspectors, but also with their managers, who must monitor and organize the control activities,” Karadzhov added.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced the new rules to be implemented in the Automobile Administration. Body cameras will be introduced for all road inspectors to ensure transparency, as well as mandatory rotation of inspectors to break local dependencies and schemes.
“We have invited the international anti-corruption organization Transparency Without Borders to conduct an independent external audit of the Agency, which will also review all reports of corruption submitted to the Automobile Administration this year, in order to have full clarity whether and where the system has been breached. My responsibility is to protect Bulgarian citizens and honest employees. Honest inspectors will be supported, and corrupt ones will be exposed and punished. I am sending a clear message: there is no umbrella, no compromises, no exceptions,” Karadzhov emphasized.