site.btaParliamentary Committee Approves State Budget Revision to Accommodate Increase in Municipal Priority Investment Projects

The National Assembly Committee on Budget and Finance on Thursday approved a Council of Ministers proposal to revise the 2024 State Budget Act by a vote of 19 in favour. The revision became necessary after municipal priority investment projects increased by 271 to 2,529.

Municipality mayors are entitled to change the priority projects in their investment programmes by March 31, by June 30 and by September 30, 2024. The budget of the Investment Programme for Municipal Projects (IPMP) was already revised in April as the first deadline expired.

With the latest revision of the IPMP, the estimated total price of the projects throughout the whole period is BGN 6.226 billion, including BGN 4.553 billion for 2024, with BGN 747.54 million in funding for EU-backed projects.

Discussing the implementation of the IPMP with 2,258 projects approved until June 30, Finance Minister Lyudmila Petkova said that 1,240 agreements totalling BGN 2.6 billion have been signed for 2024. Thirty per cent advance payments to the approximate amount of BGN 100 million have been made for 217 projects.

About BGN 70 million was paid to municipalities by July 15 based on their intermediate and final requests for the implementation of priority projects.

Budget and Finance Committee member Yordan Tsonev (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) advised the Finance Ministry to prepare for 2025, when, he said, there will be an avalanche of payments under the IPMP. Minister Petkova assured him that they keep that in mind.