site.btaAudit Office Publishes Report on Campaign for 2014 Parliamentary Elections

Audit Office Publishes Report on Campaign for 2014 Parliamentary Elections

Sofia, January 18 (BTA) - The Bulgarian National Audit Office (BNAO) has published its report on the campaign for the 2014 parliamentary elections after checking 14 political parties and six coalitions.

BNAO audited the consistency between the declared financial resources raised and spent during the election campaign.

All audited parties and coalitions met the Election Code deadline for reporting their financial resources raised and spent and payment obligations assumed.

The financing raised for the election campaign totalled 12,786,000 leva: 7,056,000 leva by the 14 parties and 5,730,000 leva by the six coalitions.

The government subsidy accounted for 57.1 per cent of the financing. This was the largest single source of financing for five parties and one coalition. Membership dues, which are the political entities' source of own funding, accounted for 17.4 per cent of the total, and were reported by five parties and all six coalitions. Donations by individuals accounted for 14.8 per cent of the raised financing and were reported by nine parties and five coalitions.

Financing from candidates accounted for 7.1 per cent of the total and was reported by eight parties and five coalitions.

The financial resources spent during the election campaign totalled 12,986,000 leva, including 209,000 leva in payment obligations assumed but unpaid as of the date of preparing the report on the parliamentary elections. Payments to media service providers stood at 428,000 leva, 49.5 per cent of all expenditures.

One political party and one coalition were found to have received financing from legal persons, although the party had not reported it.

Four parties and one coalition submitted inaccurate reports on financial resources raised to the amount of 131,000 leva.

One party did not meet the requirement that any financial resources raised in an amount exceeding 1,000 leva should be effected by bank transfer.

Information from providers of goods and services showed that 13 political entities failed to report spending of 40,474 leva.

Checks of the political entities' accounts showed that three parties reported expenditures unrelated to the election campaign; one party overreported its expenditures due to errors; and one coalition did not report campaign-related expenditures.

The political entities met the three-million-lev ceiling on the aggregate amount of financing for a party or a coalition.

BNAO found that seven parties and one coalition were not in breach of the Election Code.

The check found that 266 individuals provided or donated more than 1,000 leva each to finance the election campaign.

The State provided 456,692 leva in financial resources for media packages to the audited parties and coalitions.

Only two entities reported spending a total of nearly 51,100 leva in remuneration to election agents and representatives.