Bulgaria Ex PM Stanishev: Budget Deficit Fault of Finance Ministry

Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry is to be blamed for the country’s budget deficit, according to former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev.

Stanishev, who is also the leader of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party,  pinned the current budget deficit on the failure of the Finance Ministry to collect all due revenues.

“Minister Dyankov’s statement that the budget deficit, which is expected to be over BGN 1 B as of the beginning of this year, is intentional is misleading: the real reason for the deficit is the inability of the Finance Ministry to collect the revenue,” stated Stanishev.

Earlier on Thursday, Minister Dyankov stated that the budget deficit accrued in the first months of 2010 was largely due to payments delayed by the previous government headed by Stanishev. 

Dyankov made these statements during a hearing before Parliament to which he was summoned to answer questions about the freezing of the salaries in the public sector, the anti-crisis measures of the government, and the 2% hike of the health insurance payments that the cabinet came up with recently.

Ex PM Stanishev expressed his disappointment that Minister Dyankov’s hearing before Parliament made it clear that the government is not going to change the course of its financial, economic and social policy.   

A continuation of the government’s restrictive financial policies, Stanishev warned, will hamper Bulgaria’s possibilities for economic recovery. 

“The government is displacing the burden of the crisis onto the people,” the Socialist leader stated referring to the recent decision of the government to increase employees’ health insurance payments by 2% making them 10%. The decision was made in order to secure fresh funds for the National Health Insurance Fund, which was indebted to general practitioners and hospitals.

Stanishev has criticized the effect of the increase of health insurance payments on the general income and employment levels in the country. 

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