Counting Mosquitoes on the Danube Costs Taxpayers Nearly BGN 1.5 Million

Politics » DOMESTIC | February 5, 2018, Monday // 09:51
Bulgaria: Counting Mosquitoes on the Danube Costs Taxpayers Nearly BGN 1.5 Million Pixabay.com

Counting mosquitoes on the Danube River is more expensive than ever - public procurement to develop a geographic system for insect monitoring has expanded to nearly 1.5 million leva.

According to local authorities, the mosquito counting system was not just for mosquito counting but for their registration. It would not cost 1 million leva but 1 million and 425 thousand leva.

The cost is due to the fact that two sociological surveys were conducted, as well as an information campaign. It turns out, however, that the authorities have intervened and imposed sanctions.

On February 2, the deadline for the implementation of this public procurement contract awarded to the Association of Danube Municipalities expired.

The system itself amounts to 956 thousand leva, but 442 thousand levs for studies, publicity, translations and documents have been added to the end and another BGN 26 thousand for equipment, travel and accommodation.

For the information system, which costs 1.5 million leva, the order for the public procurement is only one and a half pages, experts say. According to them, this is a project with described functionality for no more than BGN 30,000.

According to the Anticorruption Fund, which referred the authorities to the orders of the Association, 10 of their contracts were sanctioned by the MRDPW.

The reasons are three - an insufficiently precise subject of the contract, an unlawful assessment methodology and a lack of transparency during the assessment.

It turns out that the mosquito system is a small part of the whole picture. The value of the projects is about BGN 4 mln, and the financial corrections are about 300 thousand levs.

The association says they will appeal for their money cut. The chairman is actually the mayor of Ruse and has his own arguments. In his words, the meaning of this project is not to count the mosquitoes, but to locate the places where there must be prevention.
Rousse gives as a mosquito spraying municipality about 300 thousand levs per year.

The system and the website are already in operation, although the active season for mosquito registration is summer.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

Domestic » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: counting, Mosquitoes, danube, cost

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria