The newly appointed Director of Bulgaria's State Agriculture Fund Atanas Kanchev announced that his staff was going to inspect 1028 SAPARD-funded projects in order to check for potential violations.

Kanchev also said Bulgaria's SAPARD Executive Agency, which is part of the Agriculture Fund, was looking for ways to resume the payment of EU money for those farmers with impeccable projects after the European Commission recently blocked a total of BGN 264 M of funds under three SAPARD measures.

Before the members of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Kanchev, who was appointed Director of the State Fund after his predecessor Tadarakov resigned when the EU money was frozen, stated that his administration was going to do its best to tackle the issues even though it was understaffed.

The Minister of Agriculture and Foods Valeri Tzvetanov said in turn that the anti-mafia and anti-corruption units would be allowed full access to the EU projects documentation.

His statement comes in the wake of Monday's inspection at the SAPARD agency by the officers of the Unit to Combat Organized Crime, who confiscated the files for five EU-funded projects over suspicious of violations. According to the cops, the former Director of the Agriculture Fund Dimitar Tadarakov had refused to let them inspect the files at earlier requests.

The Agriculture Minister also stated his staff was expected to come up with an action plan to rectify the issues before July 10.

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