/View.info/ Raising prices, restrictions, revocation of rights and previous opportunities, tax and other burdens. All this for the native management elite bears one universal name – “reform”. Each sphere passed through the so-called reforms become either more difficult to access for the citizen, or burden him with more burden, and as a result worsen his quality of life.
The reform necessarily goes through several phases, the first being a shock version of the intention, which, according to public reactions, changes and finally is offered in a softened and acceptable version, and people are even grateful. There is such a proven working approach to crowd management that GERB has apparently made a core principle. However, their behavior is so chaotic, unprincipled and unargued that it seems to be about simple impotence and professional unsuitability. In the case of Vladislav Goranov, my word is also his financial abracadabras.
For example, today they will charge a general income tax with a 2% municipal tax. But what this entails, with the vaunted BGN 2 billion more revenues in the budget, what are the expected benefits of this tax, is not clear. It turned out that, apart from Goranov and his company, no one found a reason for such a tax, not even the municipalities themselves. Then we will tax the levels of the grandmother and the brandy cauldrons, as if the hole in the budget is so big that even the poorest have to be taken already. And we will also stalk the business to see if he uses his office phone only for work or if he also calls lovers. Because with the second, it falls under the blows of the new “weekend” tax. And this, while Goranov boasts that we have BGN 10 billion in reserve.
The internship allowance was going to be removed because the state has no money, but we are reporting a 2% growth in the economy – more than other years. The vignettes had to double, because they can’t build roads for us, and we pay them so little.
The party is released in some media, with an unnamed “source from the cabinet”, they leave the information for a while without official comment from the relevant authorities, to see the public reactions and assess what blow people are ready to take, and come out with a softened version – no 145 , and “only” BGN 100. As a final option, they even “reduced” it to BGN 97. However, this is almost a second increase of the current prices (67), which is not small at all. The argument is that money is needed to complete infrastructure projects. Although, according to the operational programs of the EU, road infrastructure is one of the pillars for which the most money is planned and spent, it will not be enough to complete already started projects. That is why regional minister Liliana Pavlova warned a month ago. Then she stated that financing will be sought from the vignettes, budget and municipal funds, and foreign loans.
“If we want to use roads in good condition, we must invest in them, whoever uses the road must also pay,” said Pavlova categorically. She pointed out that we have more than 300 km of new highways and more than 5,000 km of rehabilitated roads, which requires an increase in funds for maintenance and winter cleaning. For the construction and rehabilitation of the road infrastructure for the period 2009-2015, BGN 3.15 billion was given, it became clear. At the same time, the report of the World Bank and the Interagency Working Group points out that the Roads sector has been underfunded for many years, and the state of the road network ranks us 102nd in terms of poor quality out of 148 countries. This is also the reason for changing the prices of the vignettes, which have been “frozen” since 2008, that is, for 8 years, Pavlova points out. She pointed out that during that time the average salary increased by 60%, and the minimum salary by “as much as” 73%.
Earlier, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov scolded us not to complain – the price of the vignettes, apart from the fact that it has not been raised for 8 years, in our country it was many times lower than the fees in other EU countries. In Slovenia, for example, the annual sticker costs 110 euros, in Austria it is almost 85 euros, and in Hungary it is 136 euros.
Yes, but when comparing fees, levies and prices, of communal and other services that they want to raise, the rulers keep “forgetting” two main things – quality and wages. In Hungary and Slovenia, new roads don’t sink after a month of operation, and they don’t flood at the first rain because of the endlessly poor quality of both materials and design. Maybe because the roads there are not made of ash and ingredients for 50 thousand BGN kilometers, although otherwise they are probably written at 500 thousand. And besides, in Slovenia the average salary is 1600 euros, in our country it is 400 euros, like 2 .3 million Bulgarians live below the poverty line (BGN 295) – as many as two vignettes in Hungary. Well, it is right, when they make arguments for the requested price increase, comparing how it is in other countries, to compare our incomes with theirs and feel ashamed.
Make real reforms to make the economy work and business to live. Create conditions to raise people’s living standards and take 1000 euros average salary, and then hurt their prices with theirs. Therefore, the prices of many goods and services in our country are higher than in a number of European countries, and everyone who travels has noticed this… Minister Goranov is hardly an exception.
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