site.btaProperty Management Programme Not Same as Selling Off State Property, Says PM

The state property management programme adopted by the Government does not mean a sell-off of properties, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov told reporters on Tuesday in Burgas, where he participated in the opening of the information campaign for the introduction of the euro. The Prime Minister specified that the management program aims to find a use for properties that are no longer needed. "First, the property can be transferred to a municipality, secondly, compensation may be provided for expropriation, thirdly, opportunities may be sought to concession the property for the provision of public services, and only when this does not meet expectations may it be sold," Zhelyazkov said.

He emphasized that systematizing information about state-owned properties is a necessary measure that no one has taken in recent decades. "Do you know how many properties are being sold? You do not. Do you know how many state-owned properties there are? You do not. What we did was systematize them, obtain information about what they are, what they are used for, and whether they can serve the municipalities. And suddenly there was propaganda that state property was being sold off - a vicious campaign, because that is not true," said the Prime Minister.

Zhelyazkov stressed that the programme is for property management, not for selling it. "We have sent a proposal to the National Assembly to review the program and decide whether the State, represented by its institutions, wants this property to be managed effectively or whether it wants it to be squandered and sold off, as has been the case in recent decades. If the National Assembly decides one way or the other, we will, of course, comply with that," he added.

He noted that the amendments to the State Property Act adopted by Parliament are not related to the property management programme. “They are related to the possibility of selling Ministry of Defense properties through the electronic platform, which has nothing to do with the property management programme. The only thing they have in common is that they involve properties,” Zhelyazkov pointed out.