Bulgaria Transport Minister: Former Government Sabotaged State Railways

Bulgaria's Transport Minister Tsvetkov showing the terrifying balance sheet of the state railways during a press conference on Thursday. Photo by BGNES

The disastrous situation in Bulgaria's state-owned railway companies has been brought about by spending the state subsidy in advance.

This has been stated Thursday morning by Alexander Tsvetkov, Bulgaria’s Transport Minister, in an interview for the bTV channel.

“In my opinion, this has been done on purpose in order to destabilize the state railways. The state subsidy was spend before and after the Parliamentary Elections in July,” Tsvetkov declared adding that the situation was also the result of old debts that had been dragged for years, and draining of funds from the state-owned companies, BDZ and NKZI.

The Minister stressed once again that the state railways would end up with a deficit of almost BGN 500 M at the end of 2009.

Tsvetkov pointed out he had understanding for the workers who wanted to protest over their delayed salaries but that the protest must clearly be directed against those who caused the crisis in the railways – the former BDZ Director Hristo Monov, and the former Transport Minister, Petar Mutafchiev.

According to Tsvetkov, Mutafchiev and Monov spent the state subsidy on purpose before the Parliamentary Elections.

He also explained a scam had been going on with the purchase and sale of railway cars: relatively new cars had been sold to one firm at a secret auction for about EUR 30 000 each, whereas older cars had been bought for about EUR 550 000 each.

Tsvetkov was positive that this was a sheer case of theft, and said all evidence had been handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office. The Minister promised that all delayed salaries of the state railway workers would be paid off, and that the situation was going to improve substantially in 2010 when no one would squander away the state subsidy as had happened in 2009.

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