Bulgaria's Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev denied Monday the recent publications in the Bulgarian press that the EC had frozen EUR 1,6 B for Bulgaria under the Transport Operative Program.

Mutafchiev was positive that he had not received any letter from the European Commission with information about the blocking of funds.

The Minister explained the last letter he had received from the Commission concerned the ISPA Program projects executed by the former Republican Road Infrastructure Fund, which was dissolved and replaced with a new roads agency last week.

A representative of the EC cited by the Bulgarian National Television, however, pointed out that some funds under the Transport Operative Program had in fact been frozen. These were money, which were supposed to be channeled through the former Republication Infrastructure Fund.

The Commission terminated all payments to the Fund at the end of January, when two of the Fund's top ranking officials were caught with a bribe. Later it was also revealed that the Fund's Director Veselin Georgiev had allegedly awarded road contracts for millions of euros to his brother's firm.

Thus, when the EC terminated the funding for the former roads agency, it suspended payments under both the pre-accession, and the operative programs.

Under the Transport Operative Program Bulgaria is supposed to receive almost EUR 1,6 B for 2007-2013 for the construction and rehabilitation of roads and railways infrastructure.

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