Terziev: Sofia Needs at Least 100M a Year for Infrastructure.

The lack of a state budget for more than half a year has put Bulgarian municipalities to a serious test, directly affecting their investment programs and ongoing repairs of streets, sidewalks, schools and kindergartens, Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev said. He noted that although financial decentralization has been discussed for more than a quarter of a century, no real steps have been taken.

Terziev spoke in favor of real decentralization, explaining that unlike in almost all European Union countries, in Bulgaria none of the corporate tax or personal income tax remains in the municipality. He proposed that part of these taxes be returned directly to local authorities in order to end the practice of municipalities pleading with the state for individual projects, especially against the backdrop of an increasing number of delegated activities.

Although Sofia’s budget often appears large in the eyes of citizens, it is in fact far from sufficient for the scale of the city, Terziev stressed. He pointed out that the bigger problem is the size of the city’s own revenues, not only the effect of the lack of a state budget on payments during the year.

On the issue of the new detailed development plan for Borisova Garden, which has sparked public debate, the mayor assured that there is no cause for concern about overdevelopment and that the park will remain without new construction.

According to him, the lack of a state budget has also seriously hampered the implementation of municipal investment programs, as well as ongoing repairs of streets, sidewalks, schools and kindergartens. For more than a quarter of a century, more and more has been said about financial decentralization, but less and less has been done, Terziev said.