site.btaBulgarian Socialist Party to Ask National Audit Office to Check Additional Expenditure Approved by Council of Ministers' Decrees

Sofia, February 1 (BTA) - The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) will ask the National Assembly to commission an audit by the National Audit Office of the additional expenditure and transfers in the budgets of first-level budget spending units for the period between May 10, 2017 and January 31, 2018, BSP MPs told a briefing on Thursday.

BSP MP Roumen Gechev said that the party has serious grounds to believe that the government has violated the budget law by allocating expenditure at the end of 2017 and the start of 2018. Gechev said that for several years now the incumbents have been withholding expenditures until the end of the year, thereby depriving the Bulgarian businesses of funds. Also, according to Gechev, this "reduces the dynamics of the Gross Domestic Product". Furthermore, "having reported bogus budget surpluses throughout the year, the incumbents then go ahead and allocate expenditures 'under the cover of darkness' at the end of the year," he said.

Another BSP MP, Zhelyu Boichev, spoke about "an absurdity" in that none of the BSP's suggestions had been accepted when the 2018 budget was voted, but already on January 2, 2018, the Prime Minister implemented all of these suggestions (without being earmarked in the budget) and allocated several millions leva in expenditures.