Sofia cleaning companies will be finned because of the unsuccessful snow clearing.

The concessionaires for clearing the snow in Sofia would receive 10 per cent less money than specified in the contract, Sofia municipality said.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov personally ordered the reduction, investor.bg said.

Sofia municipality owes a total of 318 000 leva to the three companies, which hold the concession for cleaning Sofia. The three companies have been property of the Equest investment fund since 2007.

Director of the three companies Anton Rizov was fired for providing wrong information to Borissov.

Equest demanded a 20 per cent increase in the prices for cleaning the city, mediapool.bg said. According to Dnevnik daily, the increase demanded was 22 per cent.

On December 18 2007, the three concessionaires, owned by the fund, deposed at the municipality administration demands an additional contract to be signed, which would include the increased prices. The fund said the increase was necessary because of increases of the minimum monthly salary by 83 per cent over the past three years, the inflation and fuel price increases.

According to local media, Equest was considering a price increase between 20 and 33 per cent. The Sofia municipality draft budget for 2008 envisions an increase of cleaning prices of 3.6 per cent.

The financial commission of the Sofia municipal council discussed the demands on January 8 2008, a few days after a snow-cleaning controversy erupted. On January 2, the companies failed to clean the heavy snowfall in Sofia. Borissov then threatened to sue the concessionaires.

The smaller streets in the city were still snowy and icy because the municipality did not have the money to clean those streets, mediapool.bg said.

If Equest’s demand was approved, Sofia municipality would have to pay an additional 10 million leva annually for cleaning. Currently the municipality pays 50 million leva per year, Dnevnik said.

According to Dnevnik, on the evening of January 7, Equest managing partner Georgi Krumov told Darik Radio that the demands were not a question of present interest anymore, the companies were giving up their demands and were looking for a ‘global solution’ of the problem.

The snow-clearing problem on January 2 will lead to several cleaning concession contracts being cancelled in other towns. Head of National Road Infrastructure Fund Vesselin Georgiev said that the contract with the Stara Zagora based company Trace for cleaning the Trakiya highway near the Petoluchkata area would be cancelled. Hundreds of vehicles were stranded in the area overnight because the company had failed to clear the highway.

Rousse mayor Bozhidar Iotov said that the municipality had reasons to cancel its contract with one of the snow-clearing companies in the town. Five days after the heavy snowfall on January 2 the traffic in Rousse was still difficult, because the company had contracts for the use of the same pieces of equipment in several municipalities.

Varna mayor Kiril Iordanov decided to cancel the contracts with snow-clearing companies which had contracts with other municipalities.

Stara Zagora municipality will ask citizens whether they are satisfied with the snow-clearing services, before re-signing the contracts with the companies.