site.btaUPDATED National Assembly Removes Audit Office Head Tzvetan Tzvetkov

The National Assembly Friday voted, 118-82, to remove from office Bulgarian National Audit Office (BNAO) President Tzvetan Tzvetkov. The decision was tabled earlier in the day by the floor leaders of GERB-UDF, BSP for Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and Bulgarian Rise with the reasoning that Tzvetkov's term in office expired last year.

BNAO Vice-President Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva will act as interim president.

During the debate, GERB-UDF floor leader Dessislava Atanassova said that the reason for Tzvetkov’s proposed removal is the end of his seven-year term in office. Several audits ordered by Parliament were not presented to the legislature, she went on to say. The BNAO President does not make enough effort for the BNAO to function as required by law. In her words, the BNAO did not exercise control over the funding of political parties, as it became clear at Thursday’s hearing in the parliamentary Budget and Finance Committee.

Atanassova was referring to the hearing of Tzvetkov about the Nexo case. He told the Committee that the BNAO did not have the authority to audit the cryptocurrency trading platform's employees who have donated money to Yes, Bulgaria, one of the formations in the Democratic Bulgaria coalition.

Continue the Change co-leader Assen Vassilev said that what Parliament is doing is “scandalous, to put it mildly”. He noted that the decision to remove Tzvetkov from office was proposed and adopted in one and the same day and without reasoning. In Vassilev’s words, to remove the BNAO President without having elected a new one shows reasoning that has nothing to do with Tzvetkov’s term in office having expired.

Tzvetkov thanked the MPs of the 43rd National Assembly who nominated him and voted for his appointment as BNAO President back in 2015. He later told journalists that he had not expected Parliament to vote on his removal that day.

Asked whether the Nexo case is the real reason for his removal, he said he does not believe the BNAO had failed to exercise its powers. After receiving information about the donations made by Nexo employees, the BNAO published it on its website. Within the ongoing audit, which is expected to end on April 18, the BNAO will check the donors and whether the size of their donations and of their incomes coincide.

“I do not know where this attack is coming from, obviously it is coming from those who signed the draft decision on my removal. At the BNAO we have always distanced ourselves equally from all political forces and we have done our job with dignity and honour,” Tzvetkov added.