Bulgaria's Reigonal Development Minister Plevneliev has given out Constructor's Day bonuses to the Ministry's employees. Photo by BGNES
Bulgaria’s Regional Development Ministry issued a statement Wednesday regarding the bonuses that it gave to its employees.
Earlier on Wednesday, Bulgaria’s former Interior Minister, Rumen Petkov, who is a Deputy Chair of the opposition Socialist Party, announced that the Regional Development Ministry of Minister Rosen Plevneliev had secretly given out annual or Christmas bonuses known in Bulgaria as “13th salary”.
The Ministry’s statement reads that the bonuses amounting to one additional salary per person were no “13th salary” but were actually bonuses for the professional holiday of the Ministry, Constructor’s Day, which is celebrated by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as St. Dimitar’s Day on October 26.
The statement said the same bonuses are usually given each year by the Ministry, the difference this time being that every single employee had received one additional salaries whereas in the past the bonuses were given only to some directorates and individuals.
The Ministry stresses that a large number of those employees in question, who were “highly stimulated” by the previous administration with large bonuses are currently being investigated by the prosecutor’s office for criminal breach of trusts and various other abuses.
The news about the giving out of bonuses at the Regional Development Ministry spurred a controversy as the government has had to cut various state expenditures because of the deficit over the economic crisis.