One of the questions that attracted attention in the last 24 hours is whether BGN 3 billion from the country's fiscal reserve is being lost and where is this money. The occasion was the words of the new finance minister Lyudmila Petkova. Her predecessor, Asen Vassilev, announced that he was leaving almost 10 billion. The official minister's check shows a significantly smaller amount, summarized "Nova TV".
Actually, it all depends on which date the amount of the reserve is calculated. Within each month there are movements there. This is how the drastic divergence is reached – the reserve for Vassilev is BGN 9.9 billion, and for Petkova – below 7 billion. It turns out that the accounts of the now former finance minister were at the end of March, and the report of the official - at April 9. The question is what was spent in those few days.
Just yesterday, the new authority in the Ministry of Finance confirmed that the debts of “Toplofikatsia Sofia” were paid from the reserve. – over a billion and a half. According to Vasilev, another billion and a half were taken out of the account for pensions. According to his accounts, by the end of April, 3.9 billion is expected to enter the reserve from taxes and other payments. However, according to the new management of the department, about 1 billion of the expected receipts are in question.
Petkova commented for NOVA that this case is not about losing billions – the question is fundamental and according to her it is important, when you indicate a certain amount, to also say that it is towards the end of last month. Otherwise, she would have to explain today how she spent 3 billion from yesterday until now.
The almost BGN 4 billion receipts expected from Vassilev to cover the shortfalls are questionable, the Ministry of Finance informed NOVA. The reason - planned revenues from BEH may not happen, so at the end of April the reserve will be one billion less than Vassilev's accounts.
The dispute from the financial scene moved to the political one. The leader of GERB, Boyko Borisov, was misled by Asen Vassilev's reports during their general management yesterday and reminded of an old rule of his.
„We have always believed that there should be fat, that there should be a reserve, that there should be money in the state and that it should not be spent. This is folk wisdom. For example, whoever pulls out a knife dies from a knife. "He who pulls out packs dies from packs," said Borisov.
And from the bundles - back to the fiscal reserve. PP-DB explained that there are current costs and current revenues and usually costs come first.
„What's going on? What the president gave us as a request that he would do is happening. The communication that tries to scare the population continues. About the fact that the state will go bankrupt. It is in an excellent financial condition, and from now on the responsibility for how it will continue to develop rests with the office”, Venko Sabrutev pointed out.
„There is a moment when these funds in the single account are about 6 billion, after which it is replenished with nearly 4 billion in revenues that come after expenses,” Georgi Ganev specified.
From “Revival” predicted that the next government will find it extremely difficult to manage finances after Asen Vassilev. “All this was done by Asen Vassilev with the idea of fulfilling his fetish for a 3% deficit,” commented Kostadin Kostadinov.
In order to get out of the situation who is right and who is wrong - Petkova or Vassilev, on Friday the BSP is waiting for the new deputy prime minister and finance minister in the parliament to answer how much has been spent and what is actually expected to enter the treasury by the end on April. “This is how it is done - you call the minister in the parliament, he gives the information and then we make the conclusions and comments”, said Kornelia Ninova.
From “There is such a people” commented on social networks. According to the leader of the party, Slavi Trifonov, the people who ruled us lost more than 3 billion of our money. The DPS remained silent on the subject.