2024-09-28 14:54:25
The funds provided to the Municipality of Sofia for intra-city passenger transport for the first nine months of 2024 amount to BGN 66.75 million, the Ministry of Finance reported in response to inquiries received about the provision of a subsidy from the state budget for public passenger transport and, in particular, for the funds for intra-city passenger transport of the Metropolitan Municipality.
With changes in the legal framework, the scope of the defined groups of entitled persons was expanded and the age of children who have the right to travel for free in intra-city transport up to 14 years of age was increased, which leads to the formation of a shortage of funds in the budgets of the municipalities for 2024. for the payment of compensations. In this regard, the Ministry of Finance held meetings with the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Executive Agency “Automotive Administration”, at which a commitment was made to carry out an analysis and evaluation of the implementation of the funds provided for this purpose in the state budget for 2024 by municipalities and categories of entitled persons. The Ministry of Finance requested information from the municipalities on the amount of funds spent to compensate for the reduced revenues from the application of prices for travel by intra-city and inter-urban road transport, provided for in normative acts, for the first and second quarters, as well as the estimated expenditure of funds for the third and fourth quarter of 2024,
Every year, by October 20, the mayors of the municipalities provide the Minister of Transport and Communications with a report on compensating the carriers for free and reduced-price trips with funds from the central budget for the period January 1 – September 30, the Ministry of Finance also writes.
In the terms under Art. 11 para. 1 of the Ordinance on reporting by the municipalities of the means to compensate the carriers for the free and reduced-price trips made with funds from the central budget, a subsequent analysis of the information presented by the mayors of the municipalities will be prepared and an organization will be created to summarize the outlined shortage, with a view to making a decision to secure the necessary funds within the limits of the budget, taking into account the priorities for financing the public sector.
At the moment, we are conducting a good dialogue with the municipalities, including the Capital Municipality, with a view to solving problems and issues that arose during the implementation of the budget, the finance department states.
The future of Metropolitan transport was one of the main topics at today’s meeting of the Metropolitan Municipal Council. Before the beginning of the session, the mayor of Sofia, Vasil Terziev, said that since yesterday, the accounts of “Stolichen Autotransport” EAD have been blocked. Terziev warned that if this company stops working, public transport will also stop.
At the briefing, which was also attended by the Deputy Mayor for Finance Ivan Vassilev, as well as the municipal councilors from the group of “Continuing the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” (“Save Sofia”) Boris Bonev and Simeon Stavrev, it became known that the company has accumulated 20 million BGN liabilities over the years. Bonev explained that the reason for freezing the accounts was the renovation of the dormitory for the public transport employees in Druzhba. It turned out that the materials were taken at a price 20-30 times higher than the standard price, explained Bonev. At the moment when this incident became public, the management of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to literally freeze this repair, he added.