site.btaParliament Votes Down Legislation Regulating Remuneration of Central Bank Management

Parliament Votes Down Legislation Regulating Remuneration of  Central Bank Management

Sofia, November 4 (BTA) - Parliament Wednesday voted down on
principle proposed revisions to the Bulgarian National Bank
(BNB) Act which regulate the remuneration of the management and
employees of the central bank. Currently, their pay is regulated
 by an internal regulation.

The revisions were proposed by the Reformist Bloc. They were
hailed by the Patriotic Front and the Bulgarian Socialist Party
- Left Bulgaria but GERB and the Movement for Rights and
Freedoms voted against. 39 abstained.

On July 29, the Reformist Bloc tabled a motion to amend the BNB
Act and introduce fixed pay for the central bank governor, the
deputy governors and the members of the Governing Council,
reasoning that these salaries are now determined on the basis of
 in-house regulations and subjective criteria which are not
public. The motion also set the monthly salary of the BNB
governor at 95 per cent of the Parliament leader's salary (which
 is now 4,185 leva), of the under-governors at 90 per cent of
the governor's, of the other Board of Governors members at 80
per cent, of the department heads at 70 per cent and of all
other employees at up to 60 per cent, depending on the
qualification and experience.

The motion followed disclosures that the monthly remuneration of
 the members of the BNB Governing Board is 15,368 leva for the
governor, 13,173 leva for the under-governors, and 4,391 leva
for the other board members. In its announcement BNB said that
the pay is related to the average remuneration of bank
executives in Bulgaria.

The same bill of amendments also regulated the remuneration for
the heads of the Commission for the Protection of Competition,
the Communications Regulation Commission, the Financial
Supervision Commission, the energy regulator and the electronic
media regulator.

GERB and the Reformist Bloc clashed over the ceiling on wages at
 the BNB. GERB's Menda Stoyanova said she was against not
because she is against transparency but because the BNB covers
its own costs. "The BNB exercises supervisory functions and it
is inadmissible to have the employees in a supervisory body
drawing much lower wages than the employees in commercial
banks," she said.
     
Martin Dimitrov of the Reformist Bloc recalled a remark by Prime
 Minister Boyko Borissov as saying that nobody in this country
should get a bigger wage than his. "You allow certain people to
set themselves wages of 16,000-17,000 leva [per month] and at
the same time you decide to cut back the perquisites of police
officers," he added.
   
Aliosman Imamov of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms said
that BNB is a totally independent institution and is not even
required to made annual reports before Parliament. "The proposed
 [legislative] solution is not thorough: it does not set
principles for setting a price for the work of all public sector
 emomployees, which is why the Movement for Rights and Freedoms
choses not to support it," he said.