For three months now, the issue of the minimum wage and the increase in wages has not been resolved. We are waiting for politicians to come to an agreement on what they promised. This was said by the chief economist of the CITUB Lyuboslav Kostov in the studio of “The Day Live” on NOVA NEWS.
“When the end of January comes, teachers will see that there is no increase in wages, university lecturers - that no money has been received in universities, as they were promised under the Higher Education Act, and civil servants - that they do not have a wage increase of at least 10%. What politicians need to do is adopt the budget in order to have an income policy and to stimulate economic growth,” Kostov believes.
In his words, the zero rate for flour, bread and restaurants has led to 500 million leva less revenue in the budget, which with a 18 billion leva gap are vitally necessary.
The expert said that consumers - workers - pay 1/3 more taxes than businesses. He added that this ratio is reversed in other countries. “There is no way we can become a European country with a flat tax, which exists in only 2-3 countries in the world”, Kostov also pointed out.
The expert also commented that there should be electricity compensation not only for non-household, but also for household consumers, because there are 1.9 million energy poor. He explained that they had sent an official declaration calling for this to happen.
On the topic of BDZ, Kostov said that “the problem is that the state had to make over 1 billion leva. investments in the infrastructure. There was even a contract, but so far less than 10% of this amount has been invested”. And he stressed that the accident near Lokorsko is the fault of many people over the years. Kostov indicated that they will ask for money for a salary increase in BDZ, as well as funds for safe working conditions.