"Despite the stopped measures and detected irregularities which are being investigated, SAPARD is the most successful pre-accession program which has supported the building of farms and the purchase of agricultural equipment," State Fund Agriculture (SFA)Executive Director Atanas Kunchev told a news conference in Dobrich on Wednesday, BTA reported.

"The action plan which is being implemented by the SAPARD agency should show that the detected irregularities are not a problem for the completion of investment projects, for the payments owed to beneficiaries," Kunchev said.

In Dobrich Region, the implementing organizations of 16 projects are expecting to receive 9.6 million leva under SAPARD. Kunchev said that probably by the end of September, when the SAPARD missions auditing three companies complete their work, the project implementing organizations will receive their subsidies.

A total of 2,297 projects have been submitted under the two open measures of the Operational Programme for Rural Development: upgrading of farms and support for young farmers, said SFA
Deputy Executive Director Emil Durev. A total of 194 projects worth over 140 million leva have been approved so far, with subsidies exceeding 71 million leva.

All applications under the two new measures should be considered by the end of November, Durev said. Projects are to be submitted under several new measures of the program, including ones for the processing sector, professional training of farmers and improvement of services in rural areas.

Auditing at the SAPARD Agency is expected to be completed by mid-September as planned, Kunchev said later attending a round table discussion on the problems of agriculture in Dobrich.

Checkups have been made of 3,509 projects funded by SAPARD, 600 of them totalling 230 million leva fall under the three suspended measures, Kunchev said. Replying to agricultural producers' question whether they would get the suspended payments, he said that the payments may have to be financed from the surplus in the national budget.

There are about 9,000 cases of duplicating the agricultural areas eligible for subsidies, said Svilen Kostov, expert at the Paying Agency. According to grain producers, a clear line should be drawn between the cases of technical error an those involving fraud.