Prosecutor's Office to investigate Traicho Traikov for his shares in Kaolin JSC

The Prosecutor's Office has already been approached over a conflict of interest with the former minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism, Traicho Traikov because of his shares in the company Kaolin JSC, announced on Tuesday TV 7. Emil Georgiev, Chairman of Political Club Ecoglasnost also announced his intention to refer to the Prosecutor's Office, but over an abuse of office.

The majority owner of Kaolin JSC is the notorious businessman Ivo Prokopiev. "All investigations against him never initiated legal proceedings. In fact, only one court case was instigated, referring to the privatisation of Kaolin JSC, but he was acquitted," reminded TV 7.

Kaolin JSC is one of the fraudulent companies, operating in the energy sector, which is actually draining public funds. Traicho Traikov not only covered the problems, but he also committed a criminal breach of trust. Each minister is obliged to follow the concession indicators, such as prices and yields, but he was lying to the Parliament and the society in order to derive benefits from that, reckoned Emil Georgiev before TV7.

According to Georgiev, for 2 years now, Kaolin JSC has been mining limestone absolutely illegally, as well as selling it at inflated prices. The company sells a tonne of limestone for BGN 30 to two private U.S. power generation stations - the TPPs 'Maritsa Iztok 1' and 'Maritsa Iztok 3', but the reports submitted to the Energy Ministry declare the cost of BGN 10 per tonne of the raw material. This results in hidden profits of BGN 20 mln per annum, specified Georgiev. In addition, according to the terms of the concession contract, the reserves of the Velikan deposit, located in the Haskovo district, are already exhausted, judging by the reports of Kaolin JSC. The concession contract stipulates that the common stocks, which will be extracted for the 35-year duration of the concession, amount to 1.046 mln tonnes, while the company will produce 100,000 tonnes per year. In 2010, however, the company declared an yield of 360,000 tonnes, and for 2010, it declared overall 600,000 tonnes. According to Georgiev, in practice, this means that the limestone, which Kaolin JSC supplies to both TPPs, is not pure, but contains unknown substances. This, in its turn, leads to risks in the operation of both plants, while the resulting consequences might be severe.

The concession contract of Kaolin JSC stipulates that the company can extract limestone only in case of a change of the land status from agricultural to industrial. This, however, has never happened. Moreover, the activity of the quarry of Prokopiev's company destroys the balance of nature and contaminates the water in the town of Merichleri.

The blasts from the explosives caused the earth layers in the highly seismic district of the town of Chirpan to move, thus contaminating with arsenic the drinking water and mixing it with the mineral water. For six months, the Regional Health Care Inspectorate has been concealing the fact that the water is contaminated and that the arsenic content is above the admissible limits. For a second consecutive year, the people in the region are being supplied with drinking water by water-carries.

The scandal around Kaolin JSC also involves the former Energy Minister Traicho Traykov and the MP Petar Kouroumbashev, who are shareholders in the company. In addition to the other violations, Kaolin JSC failed to inform the Ministry of Culture that on the territory of the limestone extraction, there are six Thracian and Roman mounds, added Georgiev. Currently, there are 22 ones on the concessioned territory. Later, it turned out that the mounds had been destroyed by treasure hunters. There are two hypotheses about what actually happened after Prokopiev received the concession for this territory. He either concealed the fact that there were mounds, or if they were excavated after 2010, it appears that Kaolin JSC is also a treasure hunter. By law, Kaolin JSC is required to re-cultivate this land, but this is impossible because there are huge pits. Someone must say how this area will be re-cultivated, said also Georgiev.

We warned of another negative impact which is already a fact - the drinking water mixed with the mineral one. I am convinced that the latter resulted from the explosive activity of the quarries, because the region is highly seismic. The earth layers must have shifted because the mining of limestone was aided by huge amounts of explosive material. As a result, for three years now, the drinking water of Merichleri ​​town contains excess arsenic and its concentrations are 3 times higher than the admissible limits. In fact, the exposure to arsenic causes blood diseases. Three people died for a period of only three weeks and there must be a connection, reckoned the environmentalist.

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