Premier Boyko Borissov has cancelled a series of public procurement orders this week, thus reminding the citizens that he is the one who takes decisions, makes appointments, dismissals and he can do it even verbally. 

On Monday he made a surprising move and ordered the suspension of a public procurement order related to the construction of a sixty kilometer-long section of Hemus motorway to the tune of nearly EUR 500 million. In fact, the public procurement tender was already held and won by companies which, according to publications, are associated with notorious entrepreneur and MP Delian Peevski and with the CEO of Lukolil Bulgaria Valentin Zlatev. However, that public procurement order was not finalized, because two foreign companies-a Turkish construction company and the Italian firm Serenissima Costruzioni appealed the result of the tender before the Commission for Protection of Competition. Initially, Borrissov came up with the argument that the authorities did not have enough money and couldn’t find European financing for that project. It became clear long ago that that project could not rely on EU money, because it was not included in the pan-European transport corridor. Later, Premier Borrissov admitted that he was concerned of the rumors which circulated in public that the companies that won the tenders for the construction of both sections of Hemus motorway are owned by Peevski and Zlatev and that he wanted to make the public procurement process completely transparent and visible to the public. Eventually, it became clear that there was enough money for that project and that another public procurement procedure would be held.

A bit later, Premier Borissov ordered the suspension of a public procurement order related to the manufacture of the new ID cards of the Bulgarian citizens worth hundreds of millions of Euros. The tender procedure was cancelled due doubts that the price of that procurement order was too high. Later, Premier Borissov said that the new IDs will be printed in state-owned structures for less money.

Then came the cancellation of several other tenders related to the construction of forest roads and fulfillment of public projects in Bulgaria’s coastal cities of Varna and Burgas.

What does the whole turmoil mean? It is possible that Premier Borissov has started to suffer from the “Peevski syndrome”. Several days ago during the ill-fated meeting with Bulgarian students in London, Premier Borissov was asked whether he “saw Peevski when he looked in the mirror”. Meanwhile, Turkish media started to claim that the notorious MP Delyan Peevski was dealing with cigarette smuggling and that he was a persona non grata in Bulgaria’s southern neighbor. 

Meanwhile, Brussels announced that it may lift the monitoring on Romania and that Bulgaria may become the only EU country out of all 28 member states in the union which will continue to be monitored whether it makes reforms in its judicial system and fights high-level corruption. Some newspapers in Sofia even spread the rumor that the European Commission called on Bulgaria’s Premier to make sure that the money of the Bulgarian taxpayers is not given to certain economic groups. Otherwise the EU funds allotted to Bulgaria may be suspended, which is one of Borissov's biggest worries.

Another version is also possible- the layers in the country’s cleptocracy may have already started to displace and the public resource has to be redirected to other oligarchic circles. There are many hypotheses, but the turmoil related to the public procurement orders confirmed an open secret that when huge amounts of public money are about to be spent, Premier Borissov always has the last say. In my view, all this turmoil is again dust thrown in the eyes of the Bulgarian taxpayer.