site.btaPresident Comments on Crime, Poverty, Health Reform, Road Repairs

President Comments on Crime,
Poverty, Health Reform,
Road Repairs


Troyan, North Central Bulgaria, October 14 (BTA) - The murder of
 TV journalist Viktoria Marinova in Rousse revealed the "huge
deficit of trust in Bulgarian institutions, both at home and
abroad," Bulgarian President Rumen Radev commented here to
journalists on Sunday. "It also revealed the double standard
applied to the value of human life," he added.

Marinova, a 30-year-old TV show host at a local channel, was
raped, brutally beaten and strangled while out for a jog on a
Danube promenade a week ago. The heinous murder sparked a major
outcry in both Bulgaria and abroad.

The head of State expects the law-enforcement authorities and
the court to show both Bulgarian citizens and the world that
such crimes are solved effectively and are punished to the full
extent of the law in this country. "This applies not only to
Viktoria Marinova but also to businessman Peter Hristov, the
murdered tax official and dozens of other murders and assaults
on people whose life is not less valuable than Marinova's',"
Radev said further on.

He was referring to the execution-style shooting in Sofia in
January 2018 of Hristov, who owned one of Bulgaria's largest
milk-processing companies, and to Ivo Stamenov, head of the
Fiscal Control Department at the National Revenue Agency, who
was shot and killed in central Sofia on December 18, 2017.

Radev called for national unity. He argued that a society which
does not realize the meaning of unity is doomed. "Coming to
terms with history is important so as to focus the political
debate on current issues and the future instead of derailing it
to artificially raised problems and supplanted subjects of the
past. This by no means implies that the crimes committed should
be excused. What matters most, though, is to rally behind the
observance of the laws today," the President pointed out.

He sees the fight against poverty, against growing inequality
and illiteracy as a shared task for the institutions. Referring
to the planned health reform, he said that Bulgarian healthcare
is "gravely diagnosed" and this reform should focus on patients.
 "This model should be organized in such a way as to have
patients' treatment as its ultimate goal rather than number
crunching for all sorts of clinical pathways," Radev argued.

Commenting on the exclusion of the G.P. Group construction
company from all EU-funded projects in connection with an
investigation into alleged abuses, the head of State described
this as "a serious problem". "On the one hand, there are the
high prices [charged for repairs], and on the other, there is
the outrageous quality [of the works] on the roads and even in
downtown Sofia," he specified, calling for the intervention of
government and public institutions and the judicial system.
"Political will must translate into transparency, responsibility
 and accountability in the day-to-day work of every government
rather than only after the fact, when the problems are already
obvious," the President said.

The President was in Troyan for observances of the 150th
anniversary of its townhood. Foreign ambassadors, MPs, public
figures and delegations of Troyan's twin cities were also in
attendance. SN/LG

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