site.bta Parliamentary Social Committee Rejects State Public Insurance Budget Bill

Parliamentary Social Committee Rejects State Public Insurance Budget Bill

Sofia, November 11 (BTA) - The parliamentary Labour, Social and
Demographic Policy Committee rejected on first reading the State
 Public Insurance Budget Bill proposed  by the Council of
Ministers with seven votes against and another seven in favour.
The bill was supported by the MPs of GERB, ABV and the Reformist
 Bloc, and was rejected by the representatives of BSP-Left
Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the
Patriotic Front.

Socialist MP Georgi Gyokov said that his parliamentary group is
against the freezing of the social payments and the preservation
 of the amount of maternity aid received in the second year
after birth. BSP-Left Bulgaria will propose between first and
second reading that the money for raising a small child be tied
to the minimum wage. The preservation of the maximum insurance
income shows a policy of courtesy towards the groups with high
incomes and a genocide towards those with low incomes, Gyokov
commented.

Social Committee Chair Hasan Ademov of the MRF said he is
against the increase of the minimum insurance income of
agricultural and tobacco producers. He criticized the
macro-framework of the draft budget because, according to him,
more revenues should be planned given the increase of the
minimum wage, the average insurance income and the number of
employed persons.

Dimiter Bayraktarov MP of the Patriotic Front said there is no
information on the number of disability pensions. He noted that
the separation of tobacco producers in an individual group from
the self-insured persons violates the principle of insurance
equality.