Rumen Radev: Combating money laundering is key to leaving the “Grey List”

The measures undertaken to combat money laundering, corruption, and the shadow economy are another guarantee for Bulgaria's strong position to exit the so-called “grey list”, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said at a Council for Coordination and Cooperation meeting at the Council of Ministers “It is important not only to combat corruption post-factum, but also to create mechanisms that prevent such practices from occurring'', said Premier Radev.

Rumen Radev highlighted the importance of the government's SIGMA (Integrated System for Civic Monitoring and Analysis) initiative, a public transparency tool for financial flows in the country. It has already analyzed around 200,000 public procurement procedures, and in more than 30% of them, only one bidder was identified. The platform is set to be linked to the Commercial Register in order to track connections between companies and identify potential corrupt practices. Work is also underway on measures to introduce reference prices for water and sewerage projects and road repairs, as well as to improve coordination between the toll system, customs authorities, and the National Revenue Agency (NRA).

The prime minister made the statement ahead of an upcoming report to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its expected visit to Bulgaria.

Edited by Diana Tsankova

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov