The managing board of Bulgaria's National Road Infrastructure Fund (NRIF) accepted on February 4 the resignation of the Fund's executive director, Vesselin Georgiev, with immediate effect, the Finance Ministry's press service said in a statement.

The board also recommended NRIF's general secretary, Milosh Potskov, 62, to replace Georgiev. Potskov holds a master's degree in road construction from the Higher Institute for Civil Engineering, now known as the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy UACEG, the ministry said.

Potskov has twice served as interim chief of the State Agency Roads, NRIF's institutional predecessor, in the past.

Georgiev stirred controversy last month, when Kapital weekly wrote that he picked Binder, the company managed by his brother, for road repair and road cleaning procurement contracts worth 120 million leva.

Moreover, mediapool.bg claimed that according to unofficial information, NRIF paid the entire worth of the contract to the company, despite having outstanding liabilities to different road cleaning and road maintenance companies worth a total 140 million leva.

The Finance Ministry said on February 4 that "based on the results of its probe one can conclude that Vesselin Georgiev could have found himself in a situation in which a conflict of interest would arise or manifest itself."

The ministry said it ordered a second probe to determine whether the public procurement laws were breached by Georgiev in assigning public procurement contracts to Binder. The ministry's inspectorate has one month for the investigation, given the long period of time, 17 months, covered by the probe.