The cabinet has not yet made a decision on whether pensioners and socially vulnerable groups will be financially supported before Easter. This was stated in Burgas by the Minister of Labor and Social Policy Hasan Ademov. However, he confirmed the planned increase in pensions from July 1 this year by 7.8%.
The minister assured that Bulgarian citizens should be calm, as social payments and pension indexation are protected by law. He added that the 5 percent increase in salaries in the state administration is already a fact.
The social minister recalled that for the first time the department he leads is committed to ensuring fair and transparent elections. He assured that social benefits and food packages for vulnerable people will not be allowed to be used to influence voters during the vote on April 19.
“The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and the Cabinet will take absolutely all measures and our tolerance for ugly events will be zero”, Ademov was categorical.
According to him, social policy tools are often used in election campaigns to control the vote depending on which party the local government belongs to.
“We are not attacking either the local government or the social workers. We are attacking the practices that we have observed in recent years and because of which the Constitutional Court partially annulled the previous elections. We will not allow social policy tools to manipulate the vote of voters. Lists for hot lunches, personal assistants and domestic helpers often undergo subjective assessment and therefore we will monitor the system extremely carefully. "We will stand behind every employee who is under pressure, but we will be uncompromising if we establish violations based on objective information," the minister concluded.