In a comment to the Bulgarian National Radio on the decision of the Parliament's Budget Committee to assign the Court of Accounts to audit state finances, the pension system and the Road Infrastructure Agency (API), Emil Dimitrov, called Revizoro, who is a former head of the Customs and a former minister, expressed strong skepticism about the real benefit of these inspections in the short term.
According to him, the government is not looking for new information, since the state of these sectors is well known from the annual reports of the institutions, but rather needs an "institutional justification" for upcoming difficult decisions in the budget for next year.
"Instead of committees (in the National Assembly), they rely on an institutional, professional, operational audit, which would give them with these three audits some information that they could rely on when making the new budget, even though from 2020 to 2026, this is a very long period. In the conditions of coronavirus, in the conditions of war next door... And they want, perhaps, to have an official document that would tell them: "This prevented, this helped, this should not have been done", commented Dimitrov.
"Obviously they need a document to step on to say: "Here, we thought it was bad, but it turned out to be much worse". That's why we will take these and those steps in the new budget," he added.
Dimitrov also noted internal problems in the Court of Accounts - that the institution is demotivated and organizationally shaken.
The Court of Accounts is currently in a state of serious personnel and structural turmoil due to unsuccessful attempts to merge and separate with the anti-corruption bodies: "The Court of Accounts itself does not have enough employees. There are many vacancies. It is not such an attractive place to work... A new activity was included in it - a Commission for Combating Corruption. They currently accepted it, and now they are removing it".
He criticized the administrative approach of "military orders" to the state administration and warned that the short deadlines (until September) for checking such a long period (2020-2026) will inevitably lead to a lower quality of the results.
"This is a huge amount of information that, to be honest, they would either overdo it or not do it very well – not because they don't want to, but because they haven't been given the time... At the moment, the abuse is that you're doing it right in the summer month, when everyone has planned their vacation," commented Emil Dimitrov on the short deadlines, which pose a risk of poor-quality work. In economic terms, he paints a bleak picture: Bulgaria is in a situation of "redistribution of misery" and relies mainly on foreign loans due to the lack of a functioning economy.
"We have stopped at the moment of redistributing misery, we are saving funds, reducing expenses and have turned to seeking money from abroad to finance current activities and maintenance. Now we do not need these audits to be able to justify one or another action. I am personally worried as a person who has needed many such audits from the reaction afterwards against the people who did it. Because someone will still not like the result," he noted.
Dimitrov also touched on the chronic problems in the "Road Infrastructure" Agency and the vicious payment model in road construction.
"You have 200 million, you ordered 1 billion for construction... then they take out the policy and tell you: "Please pay these 200 to these and those companies, the others will wait for the next budget".... And then we pretend to be surprised", explained Revizoro.
Regarding healthcare, Emil Dimitrov noted that costs are growing at a breakneck pace, without this leading to better quality or scope: "The same people were treated for the same money 10 years ago, and now they are treated for 4 times more money... How to find the other 50% (underfinancing) with one audit is not clear."
Taking into account the lack of economic alternatives, Dimitrov pointed out that the country has exhausted the options for fresh revenue in the budget and thus comes to dependence on external financing.
What are the ways to increase revenue? "The first is to increase revenue. With a non-working economy... what exactly should you tax... to earn some more money? The second is to reduce expenses... They used to call it "redistribution of misery".
So the only way out for current support is to accumulate debt: "The fourth thing left: To take out loans, external financing... and we have turned to looking for money from abroad, to finance current activities and support".