site.btaHealth Minister: Recovery and Resilience Plan Is Misused by Handful of Oligarchs

A handful of oligarchs are abusing European funds, and currently, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan is being misused, said Caretaker Health Minister Michail Okoliyski, during a roundtable on international standards for combatting gender-based and domestic violence in Bulgarian legislation in Sofia.

According to him, out of EUR 6 billion, only about EUR 1 billion will be utilized, because every measure involves forms of public procurement that have become bogged down in dependencies and inability to implement them. Minister Okoliyski added that this affects health programmes, such as air ambulance services and the screening program. He noted that for the screening program, the money is available, but it cannot be launched because the most expensive tests were purchased. The Health Minister explained that it is necessary to see how at least an “opportunistic screening with the already purchased tests” can be conducted, and later the procurement will be canceled.

Regarding the topic of violence, the minister said that efforts must focus on the prevention of all forms of violence. He said that the national health information system should maintain statistics on all forms of violence affecting women, children, and men.

Okoliyski stressed that the genesis of the entire problem with domestic and gender-based violence lies in adverse childhood experiences. “These are the traumas that girls and boys mostly experience within the family, because it has been proven that adverse childhood experiences are primarily caused by parents and close relatives, and are associated with physical, psychological, and sexual abuse,” said Okoliyski.