GUESS WHO'S PHONING ME?
A woman cleaner at Sofia Airport, pictured above but only partially seen as she appears to be hiding behind a bunch of flowers, announced on her Facebook page, in a state of sheer amazement and exaltation, that she had received a phone call from no one lesser than Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.
During the call, he relayed to her he was cancelling a 13 million leva cleaning and maintenance contract concluded by the airport and an independent firm. Under the contract, the staff cleaners would have been laid off and keeping the corridors and bathrooms of Bulgaria's biggest airport in order was to be given to a company the prime minister now considered dubious.
The move was one in a series of cancellations of public contracts the Bulgarian prime minister started announcing after a public relations fiasco in London where he appeared at least sheepish whilst having to answer undoctored questions by Bulgarian expats.
There is no particular reason for the cancellations except that the prime minister, whose job normally is not to interfere with contracts concluded under the Public Works and Contracts Act, had heard that there were "rumours" that the contracts had not been very transparent. In all likelihood, the cancellations will prompt legal suits in which, if the affected win, the Bulgarian taxpayers will have to pay huge amounts of cash in damages.
The woman cleaner and her colleagues waited for the prime minister to return from Brussels and presented him with... a broom – a gift to be used by him to "sweep away all corruption in Bulgaria."
In a statement published on his personal Facebook page, from which the photograph above was taken, Boyko Borisov, who was Bulgaria's top policeman in 2001-2005, then mayor of Sofia in 2005-2009, and then prime minister since 2009, with a short interruption in 2013, vowed he would, whatever it took.
Commenting on www.vagabond.bg
Vagabond Media Ltd requires you to submit a valid email to comment on www.vagabond.bg to secure that you are not a bot or a spammer. Learn more on how the company manages your personal information on our Privacy Policy. By filling the comment form you declare that you will not use www.vagabond.bg for the purpose of violating the laws of the Republic of Bulgaria. When commenting on www.vagabond.bg please observe some simple rules. You must avoid sexually explicit language and racist, vulgar, religiously intolerant or obscene comments aiming to insult Vagabond Media Ltd, other companies, countries, nationalities, confessions or authors of postings and/or other comments. Do not post spam. Write in English. Unsolicited commercial messages, obscene postings and personal attacks will be removed without notice. The comments will be moderated and may take some time to appear on www.vagabond.bg.
