EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Alas, the idea of this article was for a much more full-fledged material, examining the last 4 years of government through the prism of indiscriminate power spending. The "elite", who spent the taxpayer's money, although with a long experience in politics, received only their first full governing mandate, worthy of delving into how much it cost us in maintenance. This is what we unsuccessfully wanted to examine for the last three months.
The reason? We have received disturbing information concerning two deputy ministers from the United "Patriots" quota - Svetlana Yordanova and Sultanka Petrova. Especially for the latter, we heard that a significant part of her time dedicated to "Labor and Social Policy" was actually spent on excursions, seminars, and business trips to various exotic destinations. All of this was paid for with taxpayer money.
In the photo: Sultanka Petrova; source: MLSP
Of course, serious journalism requires that this information be verified, compared from different sources, summarized, and only then presented to the reader and the voter. That was absolutely our intention…
That is why more than two months ago we sent identical requests under the Access to Public Information Act to all ministries in the country. We wanted to receive all available information about the foreign official trips of all deputy ministers from the Borisov-3 cabinet. So that we could compare. Who is the record holder in terms of spent state money, who has driven the most significant mileage, who has done the most and most useful work for our homeland, did he stay in expensive hotels, did he stay longer than necessary in different destinations, etc. All deputy ministers, so that we would not appoint anyone in advance and provide the reader and the voter with summarized information from the original source, devoid of bias and preconceived ideas.
And the information we are looking for is public in every way. There is even extensive and detailed case law that confirms it. After all, we pay for these excursions. We have every right, both under state law and morally, to know who paid for them and how. In fact, lawsuits have been filed on the subject in the past and won in favor of the public and its access to information.
Then why are you reading a completely different article?
Well, simply because the authorities did everything possible to hide this information from us before the parliamentary elections. A variety of tools were used, from administrative loopholes to delay, returning our inquiries with absurd clarifying questions, refusing to provide information with legally absurd motives, and of course…silence (or the so-called silent refusal).
It is extremely interesting to examine how each of the 17 ministries interprets 17 absolutely identical inquiries addressed to them differently.
For example, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Tourism had no difficulty in responding to us in a timely and complete manner, while the Ministry of Social Affairs (where one of the subjects of interest is) has not been able to collect data on Ms. Sultanka for more than 50 days.
The Ministry of Health postponed, but still responded. And yes, the data confirmed (see here ) that Ms. Svetlana Yordanova traveled abroad at our expense much more than her colleagues. Note, the lady often left her workplace as an associate of Mr. Valeri Simeonov in places like Ukraine, Serbia, Russia... but this would not help us draw serious conclusions before comparing with the other 17 departments.
The same information that the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Justice provided, the Ministry of Agriculture (and not in the person of the principal to whom we addressed our request, but some random employee of the Ministry of Agriculture) denied us access because our request assumed that she would do some work. We quote verbatim: “ The information you requested implies data processing. The Law on Access to Public Information does not introduce a requirement for the obliged entities to carry out a specific activity…”. We decided to condemn them only because of the legal absurdity that we witnessed, and not because the data from the Ministry of Agriculture and
The Ministry of Sports, where the following lady (pictured below) works, has been silent for a long time. To be completely honest, for them, access to information under the APIA was an insurmountable obstacle, even while we were trying to submit our request, and they were constantly unable to orient themselves in which registry office should accept it. After the agricultural legal absurdity appeared, they simply copied it. And we seem to owe them a "Thank you" for at least answering us.
In the photo: Ailin Dahilova - Vasileva; source: kluki.bg
Departments such as Internal Affairs, Energy, Environment and Waters simply decided to hold out until the power guard changes... According to the Ministry of Economy, their deputy ministers have not participated in any business trips. If they say so, it must be so. Others conveniently pretended to be shocked and returned an answer related only to the epidemic 2020, instead of the entire specified period. Yes, thank you... but it is very clear to all of us that last year neither ministers walked around with taxpayer money, nor did the taxpayer do so either. Simply because no one had such an opportunity. We stood there and "died hard".
Why is this even important?
Well, it's not real. Who would have thought that employee 1 had circled the globe 5 times, while employee 2 had only 3 times. We highly doubt that there are any people left who read our articles and would still choose to vote for GERB, MVRO, or some other splinter of the "patriotic" union.
The self-forgetfulness of this government is not a fact of yesterday or of the epidemic 2020. Anyone who receives state money as a gift would do the same. The government is corrupt. Why blush in front of its voters now, when it can simply continue not to be responsible for its actions, as has been the case for the last 4 years. The elections will pass. Okay, we will condemn 14 out of 17 ministries. The guilty will have long been elsewhere. Even if we win and the ministry provides us with the information sometime in September (possibly), the costs of the case will be paid from the pocket of the same aggrieved taxpayer from whom Ms. Sultanka and Ms. Svetlana (presumably) have been drawing on expensive places inaccessible to mere mortals.
This, instead of a detailed journalistic investigation, was an article about a self-forgotten good morning. About people who only found the softness of bread the other day and already refuse to let it go. A government for which accountability to your boss (sovereign, supposedly) is just blah-blah from the TV screen. And in this case, we are not even talking about people fighting for a popular vote. These are representatives of the executive branch, appointed and fully funded with our money.
We thank the entire Council of Ministers for not respecting their own laws and, through petty bureaucratic "heroism", doing everything possible to hide some information from the public. We wish Mrs. Sultanka Petrova and Mrs. Svetlana Yordanova to become wealthy enough to one day be able to pay for their excursions from their own pockets, and not just from ours.
To Mr. Venev and Attorney Angelov, who worked tirelessly to get our hands on some public information, we wish for leaders for whom being honest with the electorate is not just a slogan, but a way of working (work, work). Or we could have no leaders at all and we could go on excursions instead of them. Maybe it's better that way...
