The answer to the question of who financed Peevski's flights means finding an answer to the question of where the dependencies are. This was said in an interview for the program “Face to Face“ on bTV by the Chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee in Parliament, Konstantin Prodanov from “Progressive Bulgaria“.
He rejected the claims that Minister Demerdzhiev's actions were his independent initiative and that he did not receive political support. Prodanov emphasized that “Progressive Bulgaria“ firmly stands behind him.
The politician explained that the real problem is not the fact that the flights were carried out, but that it remains unknown who financed them. According to him, this is the question that needs to be answered and such expenses should be duly declared.
"He obviously did not declare them, and those who flew with him did not declare them either. This already speaks of addictions. This, according to the law, is a gift above a certain value and it must appear in the declaration. Such gifts must be declared not only by the one who receives them, but also by the one who gives them," Konstantin Prodanov specified.
"We need to get to the bottom of this story and we will get to it. The question is who paid, where did this money come from, how come from an "Opel" "we reached multimillions and what commitments have been made, by whom and for what," he asked.
Regarding the budget, Prodanov made the following comment: “There are commitments made: both in the social sphere and in terms of activities done and carried out or activities that are in the process of being implemented, which must be paid for. Contracts must be respected - this is a principle of Roman law. That is, we cannot now violate the social contract that exists between the state and pensioners or between the state and business or between the state and employees in the state administration. In this sense, the expenses we make are a continuation of previous policies that we have inherited, and we must continue”.
In his words, the cabinet “is paying the bill that someone else has picked up”.
”In order to make meaningful reforms, we must start from scratch. We need to start on a solid foundation: not to postpone payments and sweep things under the carpet," the head of the budget committee emphasized.
“Last year, the funds collected in advance were over 1 billion. Otherwise, the state should have received them this year. Without it, the deficit last year would have been 4.5%, and this year it would have been nearly a percentage point lower. Take the municipal investment program, which was not provided for in the draft budget “Zhelyazkov”, but we have provided for it because these are projects from 2024 and 2025 that must be paid. These are commitments made before, but the activity has already been carried out. The alternative is to not honor these contracts, and for a significant part of the companies that carried out the activity to go bankrupt. They have taken out loans, paid off suppliers and are waiting for their money. If we don't pay them, we will put them in a difficult position, they will fire people, certain activities will not be completed, the streets will remain unpaved, a number of projects, including those of strategic importance, will not be completed. Even if we don't pay now, in a year or two they will condemn us. And then - we will pay again”, explained Prodanov.
He also commented on the maintenance expenses criticized by “part of the opposition”, which are an item in the budget. “They were talking about coffees, cars and toilet paper. I find their obsession with toilet paper a bit worrying, but cars, by the way, are not in maintenance, but in capital expenses. By the way, there is an explicit entry in the budget that prohibits the purchase of new cars, except for those with a special traffic regime. "About 160 million are maintenance and repair works in the RIA, which are from 2021 and 2022, which we now have to pay because out-of-court agreements have already been concluded, there are legal costs and interest. This is something we are only paying now," the politician gave an example.