Bulgaria’s National Audit Office (NAO) found major flaws in the operations of the executive agency Roads and its successor National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF), the chamber said in a report made public on May 14.

The chamber's probe covered the period between January 1 2006 and June 30 2007. It found major discrepancies between the value of performed and accounted works.

According to an explanatory note to a report entitled Performance of National Road Network Activities in 2006 and the draft programme in 2007, the value of repairs paid in 2006 was 334 million leva. The draft report for 2007 also said that road developers were owed another 169 million leva for work done in 2006, which means that the value of total works done in 2006 was 503 million leva.

However, the audit into invoices issued in 2006 showed that payments totalled 211 million leva, which left 292 million leva unaccounted for.

As of June 30 2007, accounted expenditures for ongoing repair and maintenance works totaled 135.5 million leva, whereas the fund had a 386 million leva budget.

Furthermore, the NAO found that the accounting practices and the information procurement of NRIF do not allow to prepare reports on contracts based on which companies were picked to carry out the works.

The auditors also criticised the authorities over the poor quality of contracts, which did not stipulate the length of road sections due for repair, performance guarantees and accountability for default receivables.

As previously reported, NRIF's former head Vesselin Georgiev filed for resignation after Kapital weekly found that companies affiliated to his brother received contracts worth 120 million leva.