Bulgarian Cabinet Sells Notorious Revenue Agency Building

Business » PROPERTIES | February 2, 2011, Wednesday // 17:23
Bulgarian Cabinet Sells Notorious Revenue Agency Building: Bulgarian Cabinet Sells Notorious Revenue Agency Building The future buyer of the NRA building is to finish the construction to the level it can be used or demolish it and clean the land plot within one year after the privatization contract is signed. File photo

The unfinished building of the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency (NRA), located at 131 Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd in Sofia will be listed for sale.

The cabinet of the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party decided Wednesday to reinstate once again the property's public private status.

According to the cabinet's decision, the lack of financing and the fact NRA no longer needs the building are the grounds to list it for sale.

The government has further assigned the Privatization and post-Privatization Control Agency to privatize the property through a public tender. The mandatory clause for the future buyer is to finish the building to the level it can be used or demolish it and clean the land plot within one year after the privatization contract is signed.

At the end of December, 2009, the cabinet decided to cross off deals for a partnership with media tycoon Irena Krasteva in several top real estate projects owned by the National Revenue Agency.

In 2008, the Stanishev Cabinet voted in favor of turning the four buildings (some of which are still under construction) from public state property into public private property, i.e. to set up a joint stock company together with "IPK Rodina" ("Rodina Publishing House") owned by Irena Krasteva through the apportionment of the real estate, in which the state had a minority share.

With its 2009 decision, the Borisov government made the deal void by restoring public state property status of the four premises. Under Bulgarian law public state property cannot be sold but public private property can be involved in all kinds of regular transactions.

The top real estate properties of the NRA are located at 131 Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd – which was supposed to become the new building hosting the Agency.

The deal between the Stanishev government and Irena Krasteva was that her company would keep the downtown properties at 10 "September 6" Str, 52 Dondukov Blvd, and 21 Aksakov Str. in exchange for completing fully the building at Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd with an all-out built-up area of 50 000 square meters.

At the end of July 2009, the "United Bulgarian Newspapers" company represented by Irena Krasteva, which was the firm formally involved in the NRA real estate deal with the state, decided it did not want to participate in the project any longer. Thus, there was no reason for the Borisov government to maintain the public private status of the properties in question, the government press service said.

According to various media reports, Irena Krasteva and her "New Bulgarian Media Group" which bought out a number of local and national media in Bulgaria over the recent years, including cable TV stations and newspapers, is connected with the ethnic Turkish party DPS ("Movement for Rights and Freedoms").

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Tags: Privatization and post-Privatization Control Agency, public private property, DPS, National Revenue Agency, NRA, Irena Krasteva, Cabinet, Sergey Stanishev, Boyko Borisov, GERB

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