site.btaReport Blames Local Government for Unremitting Regulatory Regimes, Administrative Burden on Companies

Report Blames Local Government for Unremitting Regulatory Regimes, Administrative Burden on Companies

Sofia, March 9 (BTA) - "Companies are subject to unremitting regulatory regimes and administrative burden, and reforms intended to improve the business environment remain wishful thinking. Bulgarian municipalities apply inadequate overregulation," the Center for Prevention and Countering Corruption and Organized Crime concluded in a report analyzing and assessing the risk posed by local government-administered regulatory regimes. The idea is to reduce corrupt practices and ease the administrative burden on small and midsize business, the Center said on Thursday.

The analysis perused EU and national strategic documents and regulations, reports, studies, expert comments and media coverage. The regulatory regimes in construction, trade, tourism, transport and agriculture are examined in the report.

It found that 520 administrative entities provide services to individuals and companies and apply administrate regulatory regimes. In the aggregate, the administrations handle 2,589 administrative services and regimes. A total of 2,950 national and local statutory instruments regulate regimes and services. The number of administrative services provided in 2015 almost doubled compared to 2014.

Deficiencies were detected in one-stop-shop administrative services: 78 such projects were implemented between 2005 and 2013 at a total cost of 85 million leva, of which 93.6 per cent were financed under Operational Programme Administrative Capacity. At the same time, just 11 municipal administrations reported in 2015 that they had implemented one-stop-shop administrative services.

There is lack of coordination both between the individual administrations and among the units in a single institution.

The Center will make the report available to the executive branch.