State Fund Agriculture: The money absorbed under the Rural Development Programme exceed 38% of the total budget

A total of €1.369 bn, or nearly 52% of the aggregate budget of €2.642 bn under the Rural Development Programme have been contracted and the funds absorbed amount to €1.19 bn, or 38.6%. “The information, presented by Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov about the funds absorbed under the Rural Development Programme by December 31, 2011 was absolutely accurate,” Rumen Porozhanov, Head of State Fund Agriculture, said today at an extraordinary press conference.

The occasion for the press conference was the statement of MEP Iliana Yotova from Coalition for Bulgaria that Naydenov lied to the Bulgarian society that our country had absorbed a little more than €840 mln under the Rural Development Programme. Yotova alerted the media, citing a letter from the European Commission stating that by the end of February 2012, a total of €586 mln from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development was reimbursed to Bulgaria and the country was facing the risk of losing millions of euro due to the delay of EU projects. As the Head of State Fund Agriculture specified, €837 mln had been paid, including the funds for Q4 of 2011 amounting to €251 mln. At present, the European Commission is reimbursing these funds and €81.7 mln have already been remitted. The share of advance payments is €182 mln.

“With €2.5 bn absorbed, State Fund Agriculture as a payment agency has absorbed much more money than the operational programmes of the various ministries,” Porozhanov pointed out. “More than €1.5 bn came from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund, where direct payments, market measures and notified measures for stock-breeding belong,” added Porozhanov.

“The Rural Development Programme is not a programme of only one government. This is a programme for the rural development of the entire country and we have to fight for the absorption of these funds,” said Svetlana Boyanova, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food.

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