site.btaMPs Fail to Agree on Solution to Deadlock over Payment to Road Construction Companies

After a 14-hour sitting and four hours of debates that ended just before midnight on Thursday, Parliament failed to make a decision that would end a deadlock over the payment to road construction companies and allow resuming road repair and maintenance that were suspended by a decision of a caretaker government in 2021 to audit all road contracts over suspicions of foul play.

The plenary voted down all three resolutions that were proposed: by the legal affairs committee, the regional development committee and MPs of the ruling majority.

Before the vote, Regional Development Minister Grozdan Karadjov, a nominee of the power-sharing There Is Such a People (TISP), implored the MPs to make a decision. "I ask you to do it tonight because tomorrow we will be unable to contract the fixing of a single pothole on a Bulgarian road," he said.

The failure of the parties in the government coalition to come to an agreement signals a deep rift in the coalition which, according to TISP, started when they nominated their own candidate for the central bank governship rather than back the candidate of Continue the Change, the dominant partner in the coalition.

Continue the Change say they seek stronger control on the funding for road construction companies and want this control to go to Parliament. Their proposal is based on a report by the anti-corruption committee and an interdepartmental working group.

An earlier proposal by the government coalition, which is backed by the regional development committee in Parliament, is that the payments be made by a government sanction. 

In the plenary, the Continue the Change proposal was backed by 102 deputies of Continue the Change, the Socialists and Democratic Bulgaria, all of which are in the government coalition. 108 votes "against" came from the formerly ruling GERB-UDF, There Is Such a People and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). Vazrazhdane abstained.

The regional development committee's proposal was backed only by 25 deputies, most of them from TISP. The earlier coalition proposal was backed by 29 votes and all the rest were "against" or abstained.

The government owes over 1 billion leva for road repair and maintenance. In his latest meeting with protesting workers and company officials on Thursday, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said that half of the money can be paid right away and the rest after Parliament makes a decision.

New tenders for road repair and maintenance are yet to be held.

Government's proposal to be resubmitted

The Prime Minister said in a Facebook post in the small hours on Friday that the government is determined to solve the deadlock and will resubmit the proposal, which envisages parliamentary oversight. "We won't waste a day!" he said.  He also wrote: "I promised construction companies that 655 million leva will be paid immediately and the other half [of the due payments] after an audit and parliamentary approval. The proposed solution offered 655 million to the road construction companies right away, on the one hand, and on the other hand, a working mechanism for transparent spending." He went on to say that Continue the Change, the Bulgarian Socialist Party and Democratic Bulgaria did exactly as he had promised, "and the parties which voted against it can be seen on the monitor". The post goes with a photo of a monitor in the plenary hall showing that TISP had voted with GERB and MRF on the government's proposal.