site.btaBulgaria Has Nearly Full Coverage of Water Supply Network but Half of Water Is Lost

Bulgaria has almost 100% of its water network in place, but losses amount to 55.5% of the water supplied and a quarter of Bulgarians are not connected to the sewerage network. This transpired Monday as Regional Development Minister Andrey Tsekov took questions from an MP about the condition of the water sector and the problems of water companies.

"94.7 percent of Bulgaria's inhabitants have water supply, the total water network is almost 77,000 kilometers and 25 percent of Bulgaria's population has septic tanks in the 21st century," said Tsekov. He also insisted that Bulgaria should spend BGN 1 billion a year on renewing the water network.

"The reasons for the water losses are the extremely outdated water network, which was built between 1960 and 1971. In 2021, the Council of Ministers voted a plan for the renewal and modernisation of the sewage system, with the budget of the Regional Development and Public Works Ministry amounting to up to BGN 3 billion per year, while investments in the water and sanitation sector barely reach BGN 200 million per year," Minister Tsekov said.

According to him, water and sewerage operators show poor cost efficiency and inability to independently tackle the problem of drinking water loss on the outdated water networks in different regions of the country. 

 "I believe that a serious discussion among all parliamentary forces and cardinal decisions, including even securing public-private investment, are needed to decide and secure a way to allocate at least BGN 1 billion annually for the water and sewerage network. Otherwise we are doomed to only patch and waste water," Tsekov was adamant.