The Central Election Commission (CEC) signed a contract with Ciela-Norma company to provide technical and logistical support for the machine voting for partial local elections and the July 11th parliamentary vote.

The contract is worth BGN 4.350 million and provides for various activities, including modification of the software for both types of elections. On several occasions, Ciela-Norma was asked to amend the text of the contract.

The agreement is for the technical and logistical support of up to 11,100 machines. 9600 of them are already used in the vote on April 4, and another 1500 are expected to be provided after negotiations with the manufacturer "Smartmatic" and after another public tender for the supply of additional devices.

Earlier on Friday, the company's executive director Veselin Todorov told BNR that the contract with the CEC is expected to be signed by the end of the day.

However, he declined to comment further:

"We will have a ban, as under the old contract, such has already been introduced in the new contract, an absolute ban on any public statements. Since we will sign it at any moment, they insist no statements to be made," Todorov said.

At the beginning of the month, Ciela-Norma announced that it would not deliver the additional 1,500 machines requested by the CEC, because the proposed amount of BGN 6.5 million without VAT is insufficient for both the devices and the logistics and maintenance of the software for all machines.

The company wanted BGN 14-15 million, which is why the CEC decided to negotiate only a contract for the maintenance of the machines.

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