Inspections for financial abuses will be carried out in the Ministry of Environment and Water, as well. Tons of mistakes, accumulated over the years by previous administrations, were discovered by the caretaker Minister Asen Lichev, once he took office in the Ministry of Environment and Water.

“The big mistakes are that no progress has been made on major policy documents. Including river basin management plans and flood risk management plans that regulate country-wide governance to ensure that there are no floods,” Lichev told Bulgaria ON AIR.

He highlighted that the documents progress with a delay of 8 to 16-months.

“I found absence of the Ministry's function in creating and managing the policies for environmental protection governance. This is the major mistake. The second mistake I saw was - government officials involved in one way or another in setting up money absorption schemes,” he added.

The Ministry of Environment and Water is preparing a ban on the import of waste from Turkey and non-EU countries.

“Colleagues are to draft an order banning the import of waste from non-EU countries - Turkey, North Macedonia, and Serbia. As well as the transit of waste on the territory of Bulgaria, except from Greece and Romania, because they are members. And I will try to ban, albeit temporarily, waste transportation through our Black Sea waters. I am doing this from the point of view of environmental and water protection, as well as due to public sentiments,” the caretaker Minister added.

The first task of the regular cabinet is to carry out an urgent update of the Ministry's budget. The lack of funds in the Enterprise for management of environmental protection activities.

“The budget adopted by the National Assembly for 2021 has set a spending limit of 70 million BGN. This spending limit cannot be changed during the term in office of the caretaker government. This means that all investment projects from now on, if any - those cannot be financed before a new National Assembly is constituted,” emphasized Lichev.

One of the big problems in the country is the increased content of fine particles in the air, which ranks us among the countries with the highest number of deaths as a result of poor air quality.

Source: Bulgaria ON AIR