Answering a question by Ivan Ivanov (the Blue Coalition) during Friday's Parliament question time, Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov said that the total financial resources spent for consultancy services for the Belene N-Plant project amount to 95,097,985 euro and 5,204,632 dollars, or 20 per cent of the total funding provided for the project. According to Ivanov, about 1,000 million leva of the money allocated for the construction of the N-Plant have already been spent.

The owner's engineer for the Belene N-Plant, Worley Parsons Europe Energy Services Ltd., received 91,965,703 euro and 5,204,632 dollars from 2003 to September 7, 2009.

The National Electric Company (NEK) concluded two contracts with the project's financial consultants Deloitte Central Europe Limited/Norton Rose on January 7, 2008, and on March 24, 2009, respectively. The financial resources disbursed under the contracts amount to 2,714,610 euro, Traikov said.

Another 417,672 euro were paid to the project's structuring bank BNP Paribas from June 4, 2008 until now.

Traikov added that no consultancy services will be contracted in the future and pointed out that the construction of the Belene N-Plant is a unprofitable megaproject which is against the interests of Bulgarian people.

Source: BTA