The former ruling Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) party will ask prosecutors to probe media claims that MRF leader Ahmed Dogan had received 1.5 million leva in consultancy fees from the state Budget, MRF spokesperson Kamen Kostadinov told Bulgarian National Television (BNT) on March 22 2010.

Kostadinov was referring to a story, published in Bulgarian-language Trud daily on March 20 2010, alleging that Dogan was paid the money as a consultant working on four hydro power projects launched by the two previous coalition governments where the MRF was one of three coalition parties.

The four hydro power projects, according to Trud, are Tsankov Kamak, Dospat, Gorna Arda hydro array and Toundja Dam.

The 1.5 million leva was paid to Dogan in 2008 as part of a consultancy contract between Dogan and the private Institute of Mining with the help of Minstroy Holding, one of the subcontractors at the Tsankov Kamak project, Trud said.

The whole project is worth 460 million euro with Austria’s Alpine Bau the main contractor. According to the contract, Dogan was appointed research manager on the four projects.

A few days ago, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said that he would ask prosecutors to probe the Tsankov Kamak project over alleged embezzlement of funds. It was also announced that the project was funded by the state National Electric Company with a loan from BNP Paribas which was supposed to go towards the development of the Belene nuclear plant project.

Following the controversy over Dogan's 1.5 million leva consultancy fee, Kostadinov told BNT on March 22 2010 that Dogan's service had nothing to do with the Tsankov Kamak project and that all documentation surrounding it could be checked.

The 1.5 million leva was not paid out of the state Budget, Kostadinov said, noting that the Trud story had many groundless claims.

He said that there was no conflict of interest because the Institute on Mining was a private one.

Dogan had always been a prominent backer of the idea of developing alternative energy sources in Bulgaria; as such he had become a specialist on the subject, Kostadinov said.

Dogan was very well prepared on this topic, held frequent conversations with scientists from the Bulgarian Academy of Science and even had a laboratory in his home, Kostadinov noted.

Dogan was registered under the VAT act and was also working on other energy projects, he noted.