The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency will undergo an investigation by the prosecutor’s office for possible malfeasance and for concluding unfavourbale contracts for incinerators for the disposal of animal waste.

The inquiry is taking place in connection with an investigation by journalist Genka Shikerova of contracts concluded for mobile incinerators for animal waste disposal.

According to the investigation, as well as to the Agency’s Director Damyan Iliev, they are unusable during an African swine fever epidemic because they are with a low capacity volume.

The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency will be required to provide procurement documents, data regarding the capacity of the installations and the payments made. Damyan Iliev will have to explain why the rendering plants are not being used at the height of the swine fever epidemic.

In an interview for the BNR’s Horizont channel the proprietor of one of the biggest rendering plants in this country in the town of Shumen Miroslav Alexandrov said that according to the EU, burning at a rendering plant is a more effective method than burial of the animals, and added that his plant had been banned from working for the past 18 months because “other business interests are being served”.

The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency press service has declined any comment for the BNR.