15 employees of Nexo crypto firm made donations to “Yes Bulgaria” party

Fifteen employees of the cryptocurrency firm Nexo have made donations to the “Yes Bulgaria” party in 2022, the party itself said in a Facebook post on January 17. The total amount of the donations is about BGN 400,000.

Five employees of investigated Nexo crypto lender donated BGN 100,000 to “Democratic Bulgaria”

The party stresses that all donations are a matter of public record, having been reported to the Audit Office, which can also be seen on the institution's website.

"Regarding the issues related to the donors of the “Yes Bulgaria Movement”, we can report the following: having conducted an internal check of our donors list and on the basis of publicly available data, we found that 15 persons can be identified as employees of Nexo," the "Yes Bulgaria" party said.

"Yes Bulgaria" recalls that parties cannot collect data on the employment situation of their donors, but specifies that some of these donors are their members, founders and activists.

In total, the amounts donated by these individuals amount to:

199, 999 BGN for 2021.

199, 993 BGN for 2022.

Here is what else the party wrote:

"In relation to claims that have appeared in the media that these donations represent 90% of all donations, we clarify the following. In the calendar year 2021, 3,167 donations were received on all accounts held by "Yes Bulgaria Movement" party, totalling BGN 2,690,870.70.

This includes both bank accounts of local organizations and other financial instruments (PayPal, ePay, Stripe), including donations in cash and those received in the special bank accounts created for the respective election campaigns of the Coalition "Democratic Bulgaria - United" (“Yes Bulgaria" is a constituent member of the coalition) for the parliamentary elections held on 4 April 2021, 11 July 2021 and 14 November 2021, where “Yes Bulgaria Movement", as a legal entity, is the holder. In 2021, 10 donations were received from legal entities for the amount of BGN 35,260, and all donations received after the entry into force on 27 April 2021 of the ban on receiving donations from legal entities were refunded in full.

In the calendar year 2022, 1,273 donations were received on all accounts held by "Yes Bulgaria", totalling BGN 1,111, 788.62.

During this period, an unprecedented 4 election campaigns for parliamentary elections were held. The aforementioned amounts were spent in full to finance these campaigns and each expenditure was duly documented as required by law.

In total, for the two years, the donations in question represented 10.52% of all funds raised for the campaigns. All of these donations are on public record. The requirements of the law have been strictly complied with - the funds have been donated by individuals by bank transfer and the required declarations of origin have been provided.

Information on donations has been available on the Audit Office’s website for months, because each donation for a campaign is announced within seven days of receipt. The Control Committee of the “Yes Bulgaria Movement” is asked to assess all the facts and circumstances related to the above donations, with a view to their legality and compliance with the statutes and principles of the “Yes Bulgaria Movement”

The party will support the proposal to establish an ad hoc parliamentary committee on the case and will propose solutions to improve the rules on public financing and accountability of political parties.

"We will continue to fund transparently and seek the support of every single person. For us, every donation, whether it is BGN 2 or tens of thousands, is invaluable because it is how we can reach our voters. We invest every lev in the campaign in order to promote our ideas", "Yes Bulgaria" added.