site.btaSofia Mayor Calls for Urgent Election of Municipal Council Chair

The election of a Sofia Metropolitan Municipal Council chair cannot be postponed any longer, wrote Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev on Facebook. The Sofia Municipal Council remains stuck in an impasse after multiple attempts to elect its chairperson failed. 

Terziev recalled that the next meeting of the council is on Monday and added that all municipal councilors are obliged to protect a single interest, that of the people of Sofia.

In his post, Terziev urged each party in the Council individually, including GERB-UDF, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria, There is Such a People, Vazrazhdane and Blue Sofia.

Terziev also reported on what had been done during the first month of his administration, which he described as "crisis" and "walking in a minefield".

Damages from riots, fires in the centre of Sofia were cleared by morning, said the Sofia Mayor. The first snow did not block the city, because of the good preparation and round-the-clock work of its teams. Only in Sofia, all schools, kindergartens and nurseries continued as usual. The snow also caused an unprecedented volume of broken trees and tree branches, twice as many in one night as in all of 2022. Over 5,000 signals were received and processed for the period November 26 - December 11, he said, adding that that there is still some work left for the district administrations in the inter-block spaces in the districts.

Terziev added that in the past month the Sofia Inspectorate imposed sanctions on companies in the amount of BGN 204,000 for uncleared streets during snowfall. He also initiated an audit in the Sofia waste plant and recalled there is a week left until the end of the public discussion of the plan-account for the cleanliness of Sofia.

Terziev wrote that  Sofia Municipality does not have available funds to pay for large infrastructure projects, including sewerage system construction and repair works in two zones in the centre of Sofia.

"We need to find BGN 72 million, so not to lose BGN 42 million. If we don't pay, the Municipality will have to return the entire financing for about BGN 100 million because it was late with the implementation of the water supply project," Terziev explained, adding that even if the necessary BGN 72 million are acquired, the cannot be used without a decision of the Sofia Municipal Council. So, on Monday, 61 municipal councilors must decide whether we to lose hundreds of millions and leave dug-up streets without sewerage and unfinished repairs in the centre of Sofia, stressed Terziev.

He added that the Capital Municipality submitted 110 projects to the district mayors from all 24 districts of the capital under the Ministry of Finance's programme for financing municipal capital programmes.