/ world today news/ The Bulgarian Irina Bokova is the leading candidate for the post of UN Secretary General. And it is strange that it is in her homeland that some are trying hard to ruin her chances. I am sure they will not succeed, as I have taken the trouble to research the attacks and found them to be completely unfounded.
As a Bulgarian, I am saddened, but not surprised by the aggressive behavior in question. On the one hand, it shows direct interest and typical Bulgarian politicking. On the other hand, we observe the usual gloating in such cases on the part of the wider public. In Bulgaria we have a saying “It is not important that I am well, it is important that Vute is bad”. Some Bulgarians are extremely envious and jealous – they would rather someone from Patagonia rise to a high position than their countryman succeeds.
In Bulgaria, there is a defamation campaign against Bokova, to which she has not yet responded. The website “Bivol” published articles claiming that she bought real estate worth more than her income, thus casting doubt on some secret sources of her income.
I contacted Irina Bokova and her husband Kalin Mitrev. At first, they were reluctant to discuss the attacks. But in the course of the conversation they agreed that it was better to clarify things.
Mitrev is currently the Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London, where he represents Bulgaria, Poland and Albania.
The accusations are that Bokova and her husband own apartments in Paris, London and New York worth 4.7 million US dollars, while their joint income for the last ten years, according to “Bivol” calculations, was 2.7 million dollars. “There is about $2 million whose origin needs to be clarified,” the site insists.
Started from scratch?
From the first glance, it is clear that the family fortune until 2004 had completely disappeared from the accounts of “Bivol”. According to the website’s calculations, it appears that the couple started their lives from scratch in 2004 – when both Bokova and Mitrev were 52 years old.
In fact, before 2004, Mitrev held top management positions for 10 years – as deputy CEO and member of the Board of Directors of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, as CEO of a consulting financial company, as executive director of Bulgarian Industrial Holding , as a board member of various industrial enterprises. He even worked for several years in the same EBRD, where he is at the moment.
The details of his professional experience and career can be seen in black and white on LinkedIn, but it does not appear that “Bivol” made an inquiry there or tried to get into personal contact with him. And Mitrev is easy to get in touch with and although he is quite disgusted by the whole thing, he was ready to answer my questions. By the way, as required by EBRD rules, Mitrev reports his personal and family financial and property status to the bank’s relevant control department every year.
One million here…
It seems to me that “Bivol” constructed their accusations, ignoring precisely such important details. “From the point of view of my work at the EBRD, (“Bivol”) completely ignored my wages for more than two years (2002, 2003 and the first half of 2014) and arbitrarily reduced a significant part of my remaining income. They also did not take into account the additional social and pension insurance, amounting in my case to more than 50% of the basic salary during the period. According to the banking regulations, the accumulated savings for a pension can be withdrawn in advance, as I did, when buying a house.” , Mitrev told me.
The total value of the salaries received by Kalin Mitrev in this period (from September 2002 to 2009 and from May to July 2014) amounted to more than 2.37 million dollars. “Bivol” comfortably “lost” half of this amount somewhere along the way.
…a million there…
In the site’s “investigation”, it is also taken for granted that while running an international consulting business from Sofia and Paris (between 2009 and 2014), Mitrev barely earned the equivalent of the French state-guaranteed minimum wage per month. The reason for this assumption remains a mystery. “During this period, my private business was going quite well, but I will not go into details – I will only add that my tax declarations before the National Tax Administration in Bulgaria are sufficiently convincing evidence,” Mitrev told me.
In addition, “Bivol” cut in half the value of the family properties sold by Bokova and Mitrev at the same time in Bulgaria. These omissions are hardly accidental and show some bias, as the figures are readily available. Also, the site “forgot” to take into account the income from the rented real estate – abroad and in Bulgaria.
…and there…
Another trick used by Bivol to suggest that the family did not have the means to buy their apartments was artificially inflating the couple’s expenses. The site assumes that Bokova and Mitrev spent as much as a third of their total income on daily expenses during the period in question – that is, a total of more than 1 million US dollars. And this – even though “Bivol” knows very well that the whole time the family lives in Paris apartments provided by the Bulgarian embassy and UNESCO for free.
After looking closely at the numbers, it seems to me that by assuming the couple’s huge daily expenses, the site has invented a veritable “black hole” that conveniently swallowed another million for the purposes of the “investigation”. According to Bivol, the family must have spent ten thousand dollars a month for ten years in a row, month after month, just for pocket money.
So much for fact-checking. Yes, the Bokova-Mitrev couple have bought apartments in Paris, London and New York. But this happened with their money and the calculations of “Bivol” are not only biased, but also unprofessional, as they clearly aim to harm Irina Bokova. And she has more important things to do. Still, if I were her, I’d judge them.
That’s correct, thanks – I calculated it too. However, I decided not to delve into the details, but to stick to the big picture. But even the smallest detail confirms the overall Bivol bias.
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* Georgi Gotev is a long-time journalist and diplomat, he worked in daily newspapers such as “Sega” and “Standart”, now he is the deputy editor-in-chief of the authoritative website EuroActiv.com, based in Brussels.
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