I wish to bring to your attention that your use of "thoroughly disinfected" in your January 18, 2011 article "Bulgaria to Launch FMD Disinfection Tax on Turkish Border" is completely false and you may want to take a closer look at what the Bulgarian authorities are doing in regards to protecting Bulgarian livestock from FMD.

My wife and I crossed the boarder yesterday at around 12:30pm and after going through the chaotic customs control, we were directed to a double windowed prefab constructed white box with a small piece of paper.

From past experience, I knew this was to show that customs had cleared our car for entrance into Bulgaria. No signs or information boards were present at this white box and we approached with the thoughts that we would provide our customs slip and be on our way.

Instead, at the first window we were presented with an additional piece of paper which stated that we were being charged 4 leva for something in regards to FMD disinfection. That said, it really was not very clear and as stated there were no signs at this location or any other one indicating such a measure was being implemented.

As we were in a line of cars, we pushed forward to the second window. At this point, I handed the woman offical the four lev and slip of paper which was rudely reproached with a demand of 5 leva and not 4.

As I pointed out that the slip stated 4 leva she even more rudely rebutted my point stating that, "I will tell you the amount owed" and gave no actual explanation that in addition to the 4 leva, we owed an additional one leva for bank tax.

Though this attitude by many Bulgarian authorities infuriates me, I am writing to point out that at no time did my wife or I ever whitness any type of disinfection activity. No labeled pools of murky water claiming to clean the car of FMD or officials garbed from head to toe in white clean-suits spraying down automobiles with disinfectant.

Nothing to the best of my knowledge is actually being done as stated by Yordan Voynov, Head of State Veterinary Public Health Control Directorate other than collecting the tax, plus enriching CIBANK. Seemingly this is an official sham to collect revenue at the boarder instead of actually being a measure to protect Bulgaria's livestock industry.

I hope you have the assets to investigate this further and bring this to the attention of the Bulgarian public.

Sincerely,

...

*(Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) keeps confidential the names of the readers addressing us unless they explicitly say they wish their name to be revealed.) 

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