Bulgaria’s Minister of Regional Development, Grozdan Karadzhov, resigned

The Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Grozdan Karadzhov, on June 9 submitted his resignation to the Parliament.

"Unfortunately, never in my life have I heard so many lies told by one person, let alone about me. This is how Minister Grozdan Karadzhov commented yesterday’s accusations of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov against him."

"This is a very pathetic attempt to save the survival of the government by casting aspersions and false statements. I did not ask for the 3.9 billion I am accused of."

The reason for the scandal at the Council of Ministers meeting on June 8 was that the budget update was included on the agenda without the knowledge of the ministers," Karadzhov said.

Karadzhov's resignation comes a day after the leader of his party “There Is Such a People (TISP), a partner in the ruling coalition, “said he was pulling out ministers from the government and that TISP leaves the coalition.

Political reactions after TISP party left the coalition government

Besides Karadzhov, TISP has three cabinet ministers and 25 MPs in the 240-seat Parliament.

The four political formations participating in the ruling coalition, “We Continue the Change”, led by PM Kiril Petkov, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, TISP and the pro-reform “Democratic Bulgaria”, have a majority of 134 MPs in the 240-seat Parliament.

Speaking at a briefing later today, Karadzhov said:

It is a lie that we have asked for an additional BGN 3.9 billion for the Road Infrastructure Agency. No one has asked for a condition for giving additional funds. He has informed the Cabinet that a deficit of BGN 3.9 billion is being incurred. The second deficit is from the non-allocation of funds for the Hemus motorway and the road between Botevgrad and Vidin. The Finance Minister has said that no funds will be earmarked there until the case with the inhouse contracts is untangled. Work on these motorways has stopped, Grozdan Karadzhov said.

Image by Dessislava Kulelieva

He showed a transcript of yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers, commenting that no coalition council was held before the proposed budget update was submitted to a cabinet meeting. "I am sounding the alarm that a systemic risk is opening up for the budget and the republican road network," Karadzhov said.

Later on June 9, "We Continue the Change" responded to Grozdan Karadzhov's statement that he did not ask for additional funds for the budget of the regional development ministry. They showed a letter signed by him personally.

"After Grozdan Karadzhov's statement in which he announced: 'What was presented to you yesterday as the main problem, that I have asked for 3.9 billion BGN extra for the budget of the Ministry of Regional Development, is a lie. I never asked for this money. There is not a single line with such requests", we attach the following document, in which you can follow the facts", “We Continue the Change” wrote in a position paper to the media.

The letter, addressed to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Asen Vassilev, shows that there is a request to increase the budget of the Ministry of Regional Development by BGN 3 949 350 000, as well as additional payments to the budget balance in the amount of BGN 50 million.

Nearly BGN 2.8 billion of the requested funds are for current repairs on the national road network. The remaining approximately 1.16 billion are for major repairs and construction of infrastructure objects. Of these:

• BGN 314 654 000 for the construction of Hemus Motorway;
• BGN 610 243 000 for the road Vidin - Botevgrad;
• BGN 57 811 000 for remediation of landslides;
• BGN 115 640 000 for the construction of Lot 3.2 of Struma Motorway;
• BGN 63 308 000 for the construction of the Rousse - Veliko Turnovo Motorway;

Current expenditure of BGN 1 300 000 (BGN 800 000 for staff, BGN 300 000 for maintenance)

The document was submitted on 6 June this year, "We Continue the Change" said.

Image by BGNES/archive