2024-03-07 16:42:50
The regional minister has three months to prepare a program with the funds provided
To guarantee funding for those housing buildings that are on the rehabilitation reserve list and for which money did not reach the first stage of the recovery and sustainability plan, where a 100% grant was foreseen. This was decided by the deputies in the first reading on Wednesday during the joint meeting of three committees: the regional, the energy and the European funds.
The proposal was submitted by MPs Nikolay Nankov, Delyan Dobrev and Denitsa Nikolova from GERB.
With the draft decision voted in this way, the deputies task the regional minister Andrey Tsekov with a period of 3 months to prepare a medium-term program with secured financing for the realization of investments related to energy renovation of the housing stock in the country.
In addition, within a nine-month period, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will have to submit a National Housing Strategy 2025-2050 along with an action plan.
The Ministry will also have to carry out an inspection of all applicants under the procedure and, in case of discrepancy, make corrections to the draft proposal.
According to Tsekov, such a medium-term program could start next year at the earliest.
“Currently, this would increase the deficit in the budget”, argued Tsekov.
Yordan Ivanov from PP-DB joined in his defense, who stated that this is one of the most important points in the proposal, because if there are no additional funds under the European instruments,
the money will have to come from the state budget
“This automatically means raising the deficit and cutting other projects included in the capital program for 2024,” Ivanov was outraged.
The opposition, however, defended GERB. Manol Genov from BSP noted that three months is enough time to find an option where the funds will come from.
“With the previous program, more homes were financed”, noted Nikolay Nankov from GERB.
Representatives of the local government also took part in the discussion. The mayor of Dimitrovgrad Ivo Dimov commented that this proposal was expected by the people.
“The most important thing at the moment is to finance the projects from the reserve list, because
the tension among people is high,
addressed the deputies and the mayor of Troyan, Donka Mihailova.
On behalf of the association of municipalities, she added that Bulgarian citizens have the greatest interest in the rehabilitation program.
“We rely on the National Assembly and the committees to support this proposal. In this way, we will be able to calm people down”, urged the mayor of Stara Zagora, Zhivko Todorov.
The problems with the rehabilitation of the blocks that remained below the line started days before Christmas, when the regional ministry released a list of the approved 756 blocks from 102 municipalities, which will be renovated with BGN 1.1 billion under the National Plan for Reconstruction and sustainability with 100% grants.
Then a reserve list of 2,178 blocks appeared, the rehabilitation of which would cost another BGN 2.6 billion.
Homeowners in them
have also spent quite a bit of money,
to obtain an energy efficiency certificate and a technical passport, but in this case these documents are of no use to them. The mayors of many municipalities noticed that there is a huge regional imbalance between the applied and approved projects.