BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom
Sofia, 12 August: The Interior Ministry anti-corruption unit will be reinforced and the corruption tip offs will be checked once again. Any covered up information will be made public, Interior Minister Georgi Petkanov told the national radio Sunday [12 August].
`I have the feeling that Interior Ministry has not worked in this direction up till now. If it did and it found evidence of corruption, then it was not made public,` said Petkanov. In his opinion, the reasons for corruption should first be established and this should form the basis of the fight against this phenomenon.
Commenting on press reports that some services have been used to achieve political aims, Petkanov said that he cannot come up with a categorical stand on the matter because he has been in office for a short time only.
In his words, the Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office has carried out a check and has established many irregularities in the use of the special surveillance means. `I have prepared an order to the special services in which I bring to their notice the established irregularities and urge them not to allow them to occur in the future,` said he without specifying when the check was conducted.
`We are trying to limit the emigration wave of Bulgarians abroad,` said he, recalling the case with the Roma from the region of Rousse and Razgrad who asked for political asylum in Norway. An interdepartmental group of representatives of the foreign, interior, labour and economy ministries has been set up to discusses ways to improve the living standards of the Roma. Measures to achieve this will be proposed next week. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry is drafting and applying a plan to curb the emigration wave, said Petkanov. Bulgarians should understand that there are absolutely no reasons whatsoever to seek political asylum abroad, he added.
According to data of the Norwegian emigration services, this year over 900 Bulgarian Roma filed applications for political asylum in Norway. After their applications were turned down, some 300 Roma were returned to Bulgaria.

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