site.btaPresident Radev: "Government Has Proposed Ruinous Budget"

October 27 (BTA) - President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief 
Rumen Radev Tuesday sharply criticized the draft 2021 budget
proposed by the government. Radev said that "the cabinet has
proposed a ruinous budget with huge spending without goals,
without clear procedures and without justification of the
outcomes from this spending".

Radev spoke to reporters during a military exercise codenamed
Balkan Wall 2020 conducted at the Koren Field Training Ground.

Radev went on to say that with the ruinous budget "the Prime
Minister is aware that he is buying comfort and clout with the
money of the people; what is more, he is making the future
generations slaves to huge spending".

The head of State said that still more worrying is the fact that
 the huge spending without public procurement procedures "has
become the rule".

"There are examples galore of this," Radev said, such as the
billions of leva spent on construction of motorways built with
dubious quality and without public procurement procedures. The
President reminded how he has long been insisting on publishing
the criteria used to allocate money for motorway construction
and the warranties that are assumed.

"The same is true of dams - money is being handed out according
to unknown criteria," Radev said.

Asked whether this is the proper time to hold such a large-scale
 military exercise, Radev said that the Bulgarian Armed Forces
need to be in high combat readiness to be able to guarantee the
security of this country.

Reacting to the President's criticism, the Finance Ministry said
 in a press release that the 2021 State Budget Bill was
coordinated with the President's Administration, which had no
objections.

The press secretariat of the Head of State replied that the
position of the Finance Ministry was an outright and rude
manipulation of the facts. According to the press secretariat,
the Presidential Administration has nothing to do with the
preliminary approval of the state budget, except in the part
concerning the budget of the presidential institution itself.

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