Any official who delays the assessment of projects in the most problematic for Bulgaria EU’s operational programme, Competitiveness, which is in fact to support businesses, will be fired. This is the promise of the Minister of Economy and Energy Delian Dobrev at a meeting with representatives of small and medium enterprises during the week.
Businessmen complain that it is still difficult to reach over to the European money, and sometimes the approval of projects is delayed by more than a year provided that the period for processing of documents is three months. Firms urged that sanctions for officials be regulated by law. There was no need for regulatory changes, however, as there are opportunities for disciplinary actions existing in the present legislation. They can be targeted at state employees who are not fulfilling their obligations on time, explained Mr. Dobrev. Until now no there have been no sanctioned officials on these reasons. Not to mention that such penalties are difficult to be withstand court if officials decide to challenge them.
According to businesses, the projects delayed by the administration is a prerequisite for asking for bribes. And although it is a public secret that officials often fall into corrupt schemes, the number of those who have been dismissed by now on these grounds is only 12 people. If anyone is supposedly corrupt, he or she will be fired immediately, promised Minister Dobrev. In his words, the problem with giving bribes will be decided by the introduction of e-governance. At the moment, however, online submission of projects under the programme for businesses is a chimera, although the government have been promising introduction of such option for the second year now. Since the launch of Competitiveness, the Government has promoted and facilitated annual application procedures with fewer documents, but so far they have not led to real payments under the programme.
The most serious appears to be the lagging in innovation projects, where approval is often delayed for over a year and a half. A period of an year and three months to assess a proposal is unacceptable, said Dobrev. So while the project is approved, it is already outdated and the company has already abandoned it.
The Association of Consultants in European programmes offer that employees receive an additional payment depending on the number of projects processed. At the moment they are receiving a double monthly pay for working with EU funds no matter how long they have reviewed or evaluated a project. For the colossal sums officials have been paid over the years, the BANKER wrote repeatedly. Since 2008 until now they have taken over 5 million lev in bonuses. In spite of the additional stimulus, there is no improvement in the absorption of money for businesses there. Eventually, of all of the 2.27 billion lev under the Competitiveness programme, what has actually reached to businesses is almost 570 million lev.
The BANKER
