site.btaGovernment Determined to End State Administration Salary Imbalances

The government is determined to end the pay imbalances in the state administration. "We will make a serious step towards removing the pay imbalances in the state administration," Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said as he took questions from citizens and the press in a live Q&A session on Facebook Thursday.

He explained that until this moment the salaries in a given state department depend have depended on how successful the respective minister was in lobbying the finance minister in the process of drafting the state budget. Denkov is determined to change this approach.

"We have asked all ministries for information on what the salaries are in their respective ministries and departments, including the National Statistical Institute and the hail suppression agency, where people complain of being underpaid - and with good reason. The report on the salaries are due by 15 September. On the basis of this information, in the course of preparing the budget for 2024, we must take a serious step towards eliminating these imbalances. I cannot promise that we will succeed entirely this year, but we will certainly make a common system to replace the lobbying approach. Salaries should be linked to expertise, experience and workload," the Prime Minister explained.

Imbalances in healthcare

He stressed that there are also imbalances in the health sector. "We have enshrined in the law the possibility to have rules in the collective labour agreement to remove this terrible disparity between the highest salaries, which make hospital directors millionaires, and the salaries of doctors and nurses, which are miserable," Denkov added. 

He also said that much will change in the health system in the coming months when electronic services are introduced. "It will start this school year with electronic health certificates and thus abuse will be stopped. Also, if someone uses your name as a recipient of a health service, you will instantly receive a message," Denkov explained.