Vassil Velev, Chairman of BICA: The introduction of the e-government is no less important than building highways

- Mr. Velev, at the end of last year, the GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) government promised to save the companies some BGN 110 mln by the end of 2012 just from the alleviation of administrative procedures. Is this happening already?
- It is rather the opposite since the different service rates increase and this is evident from the current state budget. We demanded that an analysis be conducted on the actual manner of implementation of the Better Regulation Project adopted by the Council of Ministers. This activity had to be analysed every six months, but over the last two and a half years, we are not aware of any such reports, although a number of deadlines have already expired. But this is only one element of the business environment, while we are talking about a comprehensive consideration of the Better Regulation Programme, including the assessment on the impact of regulations as well as on the issues for the accelerated introduction of e-government, regulatory regimes, acquiescence, etc.

- Mmillions were invested for the set up of the e-government, but the available services and records for online access of citizens and businesses are unsatisfactorily low in number. In fact, there are some thirty administrative services, which can be used online out of a total of 700, according to data of the BIA (Bulgarian Industrial Association). Isn't this the most fund-consuming e-government in Europe, whose implementation has already been increasingly delayed in time?
- There is already a clear schedule for the additional introduction of e-services to be available remotely via the Internet. Unrealistic deadlines are being set and we see these are impossible to achieve. It is just normal, that our work has not advanced in the right direction. The introduction of e-government is a very important priority and it is no less important than the construction of highways.

- Last week, the German business sector stated clearly that it assessed the business environment in Bulgaria as unfavorable. However, not only the German, but also the British, Irish, Indian, Japanese, Swiss and other entrepreneurs support this opinion. It turned out that the low flat tax rate is not a lure for the foreign investors. When, do you think, they will return to Bulgaria?
- The low flat tax is important, but this is not the only point important for the investor. He/she is also observing the predictability and sustainability of the business environment, transparency of public procurement procedures and suspension of the monopolistic structures, etc. The latter involves everything that we talked about relating to the administrative barriers to the business sector as well as the corrupt practices, which are not declining in number, according to the total estimates. Businesses is also monitoring other important matters such as the real estate asset protection. In terms of the latter indicator, our country is far below average in the world rankings. These are important requirements followed by the investor before he takes a decision. Based on the survey, which was announced last week, about 35% of surveyed strategic investors in Bulgaria who have purchased enterprises or have invested in green energy projects, already regret it. It is even worse that last year this percentage of 21.5% was lower, while currently it already reaches these levels and all this indicates that at this point the business environment is unacceptable.

- In fact, the first programming period of EU funding from 2007 to 2013 is due to end. How do you assess the absorption of EU funds on which the Bulgarian business sector relies so much? Do you think that there is a chance for the funds utilisation to accelerate by the end of the programming period?
- Actually, we are not finalising the programming period, since the rule N + 2 is still valid, which means that the recently contracted funds could be absorbed in 2 years so that the newly projected grants could be rather spent from 2015 onwards. In fact, these rules will apply for a long time during this programming period. In this respect, we have always maintained that the current ineffective absorption of EU is not the fault of the business sector. There are many more proposals. That is, the demand for EU grants is higher than the capacity of the administration to evaluate on time the proposed projects as well as to conclude contracts and verify the incurred expenditures in order to allocate the subsidies. Unfortunately, the number of the entities disappointed of the projects is rising. Increasing lower amount of the companies admitted that they cannot rely on EU funding because it is not clear when that will take effect and whether it will happen in accordance with the initially set conditions. Therefore, we call for the simplification of rules and acceleration of overall procedures. If the public administration cannot cope with the latter, some of these activities need to be outsourced.

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