The Chairperson of the Municipal Council in Bobov Dol: “When Kovachki Calls Me Up, He Chides Me, Too, Every Week.”
This is an excerpt from a video, available on the website of Bobov Dol Municipality, and recorded at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, Water Management, and Ecology, which was held on 25 August this year.
At around the 12th minute of the recording, Krasimir Chavraganski, the chairperson of the Municipal Council, shares that oligarch Hristo Kovachki, featured in ACF’s recent investigation Mr. Grass Head’s Holding Company, calls him every week and berates him. Chavraganski, however, puts up with it, probably for the good of all citizens in the municipality.
Chavraganski made the above remark in a discussion of the dismissal of Boyko Simeonov, director of the municipal enterprise Chistota, as he attempted to highlight the need to respect hierarchy within municipal structures.
His words were: “You know, just to inform you, there have been cases where Yuli has called me to complain about how they treat him at the meetings at Botev, saying he wanted to cry. But we’re there. Or when Kovachki calls me up, he chides me, too, every week. But I don’t… we go there and put up with it, and that’s how it is.”
Krasimir Chavraganski was elected chairperson of the Bobov Dol Municipal Council. He represents the political party Future for the Fatherland, which is headquartered in Stara Zagora and works to preserve the mines and thermal power plants in the coal-mining regions.
His statement is the first official acknowledgement that Hristo Kovachki exerts significant, though informal, influence over local government officials in Bobov Dol.
The “Yuli” mentioned in Chavraganski’s statement is probably Yulian Boyanov, a member of the municipal council from the political party GERB who was also the party’s mayoral candidate in the last round of the local elections.