EX FINANCE MINISTER IS TO BLAME FOR BALKAN AIRWAYS

Views on BG | October 26, 2001, Friday // 00:00

Standart Daily

Prosecutor's Office should stop digging into the deals, warns Vladimir Karolev, head of the Balkan Consulting Company. There are no differences between the Simeon II National Movement (NMS) pre-election program and management program of the cabinet till 2005, as regards their philosophy, said for "Standart" Vladimir Karolev, who was one of the authors of the economic part of the NMS pre-election program.

- Mr Karolev, you consulted some of the privatization deals, now being checked out by the Prosecutor's Office. Do you think someone is to be imprisoned?

- My respects to the prosecutors, but I'm absolutely sure that the economic clauses of a privatization contract are beyond their grasp. They are able only to look over the contracts and that's all. Alexander Bozhkov said that, as for their compliance with the law, 99.9% of the deals are perfect. The major problem is that the privatization during the last years has been carried out legally, but immorally. The prosecutors will see that 299 of 300 deals have been sealed correctly. But the checkups will produce an extremely negative effect, because agencies, such as Reuters or Blumberg, broadcast how Solvay, Union Minierre and Unicredito are being investigated in Bulgaria and it triggers a very bad reaction abroad.

- But if there were any breaches, shouldn't they be made known to people?

- To me, it is necessary that experts in privatization gather and explain which of the deals are legal and which of them are immoral. For example, if I tell the truth about the Balkan Airlines deal, Muravey Radev should burn with shame. For he is one of the major culprits for the failure with this deal. I have documents on this deal at my disposal. The documentation shows that the consultant put it clearly: do not sign with Gad Zeevi. But the Privatization Agency shut their eyes to it. Muravey Radev told them: "Do seal it, or the IMF will declare it winding up." Which is not true. If the government said to the IMF, you see, we are progressing with the negotiations, give us another month, they would have given it. Radev and Dobrin Mitev are to blame for the bankruptcy of the Varna-based shipyard, as well. But the prosecutors will not be able to imprison anyone, no matter how many checkups they will have. There too, everything was legal, but immoral.

- The government said it will sell out the BTC and Bulgartabac as late as end-2002. Accusations were voiced that such haste is unnecessary. Do you agree with them?
- The sell is not made hastily, for it was delayed. The longer we wait, the cheaper these two companies would be sold. The point is whether anyone would come to buy out the BTC at all, rather than whether it would be sold speedily. If someone comes, it will be either OTE, or Mataf. No matter who, BTC has to be sold out.

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