“The Mismanagement of State Finances in 2022: Dangerous Fruits of Incompetence”

Thanks to the incompetent financial policy of Asen Vasilev, we are quickly sliding towards a budget disaster. This is what Slavi Trifonov, the leader of “There is such a people”, wrote on his Facebook profile.

“Time reveals the truth. The mismanagement of public finances in 2022, due to which PP “There is such a people” left the coalition, is bearing its poisonous fruits. The uncontrolled spending of public funds has led to the caretaker government proposing an increase in taxes – VAT yes be increased to 22%, and the flat tax for companies to 15%,” he pointed out.

“Yesterday, the caretaker government submitted a budget with a deficit of 6.4% of GDP. This is something unheard of from the Videnov era so far, and we all remember how it ended. For some politicians, what is happening may be surprising, and for others it is even quite normal and desirable. And in fact, many economists have been predicting exactly that to happen since the summer of 2021.

In 2-3 short years, the budget expenditures of the state, measured in billion BGN, almost doubled. The public debt was below BGN 30 billion. This year it may approach BGN 50 billion, and next year – BGN 60 billion. Instead, during this period, Bulgaria should move closer to the Eurozone (like Croatia), raise its credit rating and attract multibillion-dollar investments ( (such as Romania and Serbia), we bathe in the bliss of incompetence and populism,” Trifonov also wrote.

“Like any other process in politics, these phenomena also have their clear cause. It is the Venezuelan-type leftist ideology that captured the first caretaker government in 2021 and the regular government from 2021-2022. The financial “guru” of this era, the former finance minister from PP Asen Vassilev, professes an elementary ideology, which can be summed up in a single sentence: “The bigger the budget deficit we have, the bigger the debt we accumulate, the bigger the social expenses we distribute and finance them only with new credits and with the money from the Recovery and Resilience Plan – the better,” he adds.

“At the moment there is a discussion about the import of Ukrainian food. One of the reasons for getting here is the so-called “Grain special operation” from the spring of 2022. Then the government commissioned state-owned companies with a staff of 8 people to buy one and a half million tons For this purpose, BGN 1.2 billion were drained from the energy industry’s blood.

Meanwhile, the government imposed an administrative racket on grain producers to prevent them from exporting at then record high prices. In the end, the grain was not bought by the state, and the farmers realized huge losses. And this 1.2 billion BGN went to an unknown place, or maybe it was just stolen. And let me not forget – do you remember the 9 billion spent at the end of 2021 by this same Asen Vassilev, which we as a nation did not understand what it was for and to whom it went?” he asks.

“To this day, PP representatives claim the following:

– In their time, the debt had not been raised

– Everything is fine with the budget

– Before the last election, they proposed to raise pensions by another 20%

The current actions of acting Finance Minister Rositsa Velkova, who was Asen Vassilev’s deputy minister, clearly show what the truth actually is,” Trifonov said.

“Yesterday, the president sensibly commented that if the official cabinet had introduced a budget in November, the deficit would have jumped by another BGN 10 billion.

The most important question is what to do from now on. Bulgaria does not need new elections. It does not need a populist government either. It needs a stable regular cabinet with great courage and strong will to reverse the current dramatic trend. For an economy to be strong, there must be investment. Only this will lead to higher incomes and better lives for everyone! We need a budget that shows the state’s desire to support all local and foreign investors who want to develop business in Bulgaria.

The right thing to do, in my opinion, is not to raise taxes. They do not include giving up the Eurozone for decades to come, but include reforms in the public sector and limiting the astronomical growth of expenses,” the ITN leader concluded.

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