site.btaFinance Minister before Parliament:Budget Position Is Improving

Finance Minister before Parliament: Budget Position Is Improving

Sofia, May 26 (BTA) - The data about the implementation of the
budget for January-April 2015 reveal considerable improvement of
the budget position, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said
during Question Time Tuesday.

At April 30, 2015 the budget position is a surplus to the amount
of 1,660 million leva, which is the best fiscal implementation
in the past few years, comparable to that in 2008, Goranov said.
He pointed out that the balance last year, at comparable
amounts of budget costs, was negative and stood at 864 million
leva. The data for May are even more positive from the point of
view of fiscal balance.

In the first four months of 2015 revenue agencies have collected
814.2 million leva more year-on-year, which is a nominal growth
of 11.5 per cent, Goranov said. The growth of tax revenue for
the year planned in the 2015 Budget Act is 4.3 per cent compared
to 2014. This is due to the increased collection.

Expenses for defence cannot be made other than those voted in
the state budget

The establishment of a State Fund for Investments in Defence
contradicts the principles and rules set down in the Public
Finances Act, Goranov said in response to a question about the
establishment of such to provide additional funding for the
programme for development of the armed forces.

The Minister of Finance noted that the allotment of sources of
revenue from the sale of redundant arms, equipment and property
of the Defence Ministry to a separate fund does not change their
character of budget revenue and does not provide the
opportunity for automatic additional unplanned expenses under
the budget of the fund. If defence costs are insufficient then
there should be a debate about their amount, but there is no way
the total amount of these costs can be excluded from the
Consolidated Fiscal Programme and the debate on that is led with
the annual National Budget Act.

All transactions detrimental to Corpbank assets will be appealed

All transactions potentially detrimental to the mass of
bankruptcy will be appealed, Goranov also said. He was speaking
in response to a question of MP Martin Dimitrov concerning the
need of appealing the offsetting against Corporate Commercial
Bank (Corpbank) assets. A total of 180 cases of offsetting that
will be appealed have been established.

Over 200 credits have been declared exigible in advance. At this
stage, eight cases have been brought before court to declare
relative non-existence of exigibility for over 4.6 million leva.


The Financial Minister also responded to a question relevant to
the need of commissioning the Corpbank case to an international
investigation company. Following an invitation dated April 29,
11 companies have sent the required documents and two candidates
were already shortlisted on May 19. Negotiations are expected
to be completed by the end of this week and a contract is to be
concluded. The two companies are among the largest with
experience in this field.