site.btaFinance Minister Petkova Slams Assen Vassilev Over Mishandling of Public Funds

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said on Tuesday that former finance minister Assen Vassilev would be remembered in public finance textbooks as an example of mishandling taxpayers' money. She was reacting on Facebook to a post by the Continue the Change leader who said that in the past six months Bulgaria took on more public debt than it did during the previous three years put together.

Petkova said Vassilev is an example of how harmful it is to be a populist finance minister. "It will take us a long time to deal with the negative consequences of this person's presence in Bulgaria's public finances," she added.

Petkova cited examples, criticizing Vassilev for taking on debt to raise wages and pensions without economic justification; withdrawing a little over BGN 5 billion from the state energy sector with no transparency about the spending; pulling BGN 1.2 billion from the National Electricity Company allegedly to buy grain, yet with no grain and no money available to this day; taking BGN 1.2 billion from the Water and Sewerage Holding with no clear account of the funds' use; signing an agreement for BGN 600 million in aid to farmers without budgetary provision; promising municipalities billions for investment projects when only BGN 500 million had been budgeted; and normalizing a 3% budget deficit. "This is beyond unacceptable," the Finance Minister wrote.