© Velko Angelov
In his words, the work of “Continuing the change – Democratic Bulgaria” is to clean these things up, not “to go stress people and tell them how bad it is. That’s why they chose us”.
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There are crazy things that can be seen, it’s just not okay to talk about them, it’s very ugly what can be seen from the inside.” This was commented by the co-chairman of “Proceeding the change” and former finance minister Asen Vasilev in the program “The Day with Veselin Dremdzhiev” on the occasion of his colleague Kiril Petkov’s interview with Sasho Dikov, in which he gave examples of the conquered state, including that when he became prime minister, employees of the National Security Service (NSO) were following him and yet he could not replace them.
In response to a question whether it is not necessary to talk about the shortcomings in the country, Vassilev noted that he always believed that the work of “We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria” is to clean up these things, and not “to go and stress people and to tell them how bad it is, that’s why they chose us”.
However, he gave two examples of “tumor formations” in two different spheres. According to him, entering the National Revenue Agency (NAA) in 2021, after he was appointed acting Minister of Finance, together with his appointed head of the revenue agency Rumen Spetsov, they found “a very well-organized system for stealing companies “, in which fictitious acts were drawn up for their companies, or VAT was withheld from them, payments were not returned, etc., after which the company appealed, and then it was the turn to go through an internal appeal at the National Revenue Agency.
“The internal appeal was completely taken over and that’s when the internal appeal sits and waits and somebody goes to the relevant company and blackmails it and says ‘here now you sell the company or you do one, two, three and we’ll solve the problem.’ and he will never get to court,” Vassilev clarified and assured that this thing was stopped, “he was put on hix and this department was cleaned”.
Kiril Petkov: NSO employees followed me, analysts and political scientists asked me BGN 20,000 per month
He also told about a “scheme” in which doctors put stents in patients just to drain the health fund, not because they needed it.
Asked how he explained Spetsov’s stay as head of the National Revenue Agency and under the interim government of Dimitar Glavchev, Vassilev commented that, according to him, after “the fiasco during the previous government offices, I think there is an understanding that someone should collect taxes professionally and that the National Revenue Agency under the leadership of Rumen Spetsov, it copes quite well with this task”.
When asked how he explains the fact that the leader of GERB Boyko Borisov “compliments you on even days and criticizes you on odd days”, Vassilev noted that Borisov very clearly realized that the way in which financial policy was conducted during the last few years, “in fact, it has been very well received by both the companies and the Bulgarian society and it gives very good results”. In addition, according to his words, the leader of GERB is worried that this policy brings a political dividend to “We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria”, and also that the coalition does not give up on key things, setting an example with the program for municipalities.
According to Asen Vassilev, “a very muddy (election) campaign” awaits us.
