Crown Agents Offer Tips as Farewell to Bulgaria

The British company has been consulting Bulgaria's Customs Agency since 2001. File photo

The British Crown Agents consultancy, whose contract with the Bulgarian government was suspended after it expired at the end of June, submitted Tuesday to Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, their official report.

The report on the company's program to reform the Customs, offers to the Finance Ministry a list of 332 recommendations, because many of the undertaken program measures are in different stages of accomplishment, the company informs.

The British company has been consulting the country's government since 2001, when the centrist cabinet of former Tsar, Simeon Saxe-Coburg, came into office. All the services provided have been directly financed by the Bulgarian government.

The program for an upgrade in the Bulgarian financial administration was launched in June 2007 following a six-month suspension after the end of the previous project, concerning the Customs.

The consultancy experts assisted the agencies, which are in charge of revenues collection and fraud prevention, including the National Revenues Agency, the Customs Agency and the State Agency for National Security.

Since 2001, Crown Agents, have been criticized by the opposition in the Parliament for being both expensive and ineffective.

In May, 2010, Djankov told the Members of the Parliament that the company received a total of BGN 90 M for their services, but because they did not accomplish the tasks, their contract would not be renewed.

To the contrary, in their press release, “Crown Agents” state the results from their work both in revenue collection and in modernizing the Administration have a direct and positive effect on people, the business and the economy. They point out the large number of analysis and assessments of the legislation and the work practices they have prepared, their idea to create mobile Customs units to check vehicles, and their effort to fight illegal imports.

The opponents of the British company say the increased revenues during the years they have been in Bulgaria is attributed to economic growth and large volume of import, not to their work, while the access to information by the Brits threatens national security.

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