After heavy criticism earlier this month, Bulgarian state-owned IT firm Information Services has slightly adjusted the conditions for a 500 000 leva tender for the implementation of a control system for the customs office, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik said.

Complaints against the original conditions had been raised by the Bulgarian Agency for Information and Technology (BAIT) at the beginning of the month.

The row comes only days after the Public Financial Inspection Agency (PFIA) had reported financial irregularities at Information Services.

The new tender had been uploaded to the website of Information Services on November 20.

Among the changes Information Services had made to the tender was an increase of the period in which bids could be submitted from one to eight days, and a reduction of the turnover applicants were required to have, from five million leva to four million, Dnevnik said.

However, the condition that applicants should have completed at least one project that uses the CCN Gateway communication system for the exchange of data with the European Commission, predetermined the outcome of the tender, the IT industry had objected, saying there was only one company that could fulfill that requirement; Bulgaria Gravis, run by former deputy director of the customs office Georgi Grigorov, Dnevnik said.

The CCN or Common Communication Network interconnects the national tax and customs offices of European Union member states.

According to BAIT, these conditions appeared to have been written with a specific candidate in mind, although BAIT did not specifically mention a company name.

"Information Services does not abide by any law because it is not required to. It ought to be shut down," Jordan Kisiov, board member of BAIT and manager of Risk Electronics, was quoted by Dnevnik as saying.

Victor Petrov, manager of Comitex and a BAIT member, said the organisation was considering whether to approach Prime Minister Boiko Borissov about the case.

Gravis Bulgaria confirmed it intended to participate in the tender, Dnevnik said. According to Grigorov, there were at least six or seven companies in Bulgaria that had completed a CCN Gateway project, although he would not specify who these companies were.

Gravis had been shortlisted for building customs office information services in Serbia. "Are they going to claim that these conditions have also been written for us?" Grigorov said.

Besides his former function as deputy chief at the customs office, Grigorov was also on the supervisory board of Information Services, Dnevnik said.

Chavdar Todorov, manager of Information Services, denied accusations that there was only one company that could meet the conditions of the tender. Todorov said he had sent invitations to more than a dozen companies, although he did not specify any names.