Bulgaria's new anti-corruption commission (KPK) still cannot work properly because it has no offices, administration or funding, its chairman Plamen Todorov told parliament's committee on preventing and fighting corruption. He hopes it will have at least basic capacity in all areas by 3 November. See our original report: Bulgaria's audit office has received 671 conflict-of-interest reports since February.

The National Audit Office has sent a list of assets accepted by the former KPK, and they are being handed to the new commission. Todorov said the commission needs them "because without them it would take at least several more months to start any work". The law has no specific text on succession, but without at least some of the assets the commission cannot work at full capacity.

Ten staff have been hired and are already at work. Rooms in a building at 6 Sveta Nedelya Street are being listed. The new KPK has also held talks with the Commission for Illegal Assets Forfeiture about using a number of its rooms. Todorov said the space matters, even though the staff is very small.

The commission has started hiring procedures and competitions for its "Operational Activities" and "Investigations" directorates. Until they are staffed, it needs a minimum number of people to take over pre-trial cases under the Criminal Procedure Code, along with archive documents from the State Agency for National Security.

At a hearing in September, Todorov said the KPK must inherit between 300 and 400 pre-trial cases. But it is not yet carrying out the tasks the law gives it, because of organisational and administrative problems. The files cannot be handed over until the relevant directorates are in place.

Once the asset procedure ends, Todorov plans talks with the interior ministry. He also hopes to get funding soon, and the KPK website is being built.

Glavchev presented the audit office's results up to the creation of the new KPK and said everything will be handed over when the commission is ready. From 14 February to 3 August, its "Conflict of Interest" directorate worked on 482 reports. The office made 503 decisions at the admissibility stage and 30 on the merits.

The "Corruption Prevention" directorate has agreed 47 draft laws. In 5 of them it found signs of corruption risk and proposed changes. It has also drafted a method for analysing specific integrity risks for people in public office, and its "Public Register" unit has processed about 16,600 declarations.

In January, parliament closed the old KPK and passed some of its powers to the organised crime directorate GDBOP and the audit office. The audit office took over corruption prevention, conflicts of interest and checks on declarations. The closed commission's archive is kept there.