Bulgaria’s anti-corruption unit BORKOR to be dissolved

Bulgarian Centre for Prevention and Countering Corruption and Organized Crime (BORKOR) is to cease existing as an independent agency and become a section within the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, the newswire Novinite reported July 3.

“The operation of BORKOR as an independent agency had yielded no serious results, and its current structure was not very successful one, with hefty expenditure set aside from the state budget in return of a rather modest record,” said Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev, as cited by the newswire.

The Bulgarian Interior Ministry is to issue an official announcement of the subject shortly, at one of the three remaining sessions at the Council of Ministers until end-July, before an interim government is appointed.

BORKOR was created in 2011 by the former government of current opposition party GERB, with an aim to stem the flow of a number of large-scale corruption schemes and fight fraud at a local level. Since 2011, the agency received GBP 18 mln in state funding and has been a subject of frequent criticism for its inefficiency.