MP: Bulgaria Spent EUR 50 M for Civil Servants' Bonuses

Bulgaria's Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov has been under fire for excessive bonuses given to civil servants in 2011. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov refused to name the amount of state money paid in scandalous bonuses for civil servants during question time in Parliament Friday.

Djankov had been asked about the topic, which raised significant controversy in Bulgaria over the past weeks and led to a number of senior resignations, by Bulgarian Socialist Party MP Angel Naydenov.

As part of the question, Naydenov asked the Minister of Finance to specify the exact amount that the Bulgarian state paid for bonuses during 2011.

In his answer, Djankov touched only on the measures that the government will be taking to mend legislation that regulates the issuing of bonuses.

According to the FinMin, in Bulgaria there are 52 acts regulating bonuses for civil servants, and they all are being revised by cabinet, with one of them already passed in Parliament on first reading.

This answer angered Naydenov, who said that Djankov "must be afraid" of provoking an even greater scandal if he specifies the total amount of bonuses for last year.

According to the socialist MP's estimate, the state could have spent as much as BGN 100 M for bonuses in 2011, which he said is outrageous given the rhetoric of public spending cuts.

Naydenov said that figures already received by the Bulgarian Parliament covering part of state agencies' bonuses show that BGN 19 M have been given to persons working in those institutions.

He added to that some BGN 40-50 M given out by the Ministry of Finance, with the remaining tens of millions being spent at other institutions.

Djankov retorted using a well-established approach of bashing the former three-way coalition government of Bulgaria, in which the Bulgarian Socialist Party had the leading role.

According to the FinMin, the slack rules which allowed random giving of excessively high bonuses were coined by the three-way coalition cabinet.

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