GERB MP Dimitar Gamishev Resigned

MP Dimitar Gamishev from GERB party (the majority partner in the ruling coalition) on 28^th of March submitted an application to leave Parliament.

The reason is that the Prosecutor's Office has initiated a check in his companies for unpaid taxes.

The case was a cause for verbal arguments between the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and GERB in the plenary hall and outside it.

In a statement BSP accused Gamishev that before he became MP and municipal coordinator of GERB in the town of Gotse Delchev, in order to avoid paying taxes, he sold one of his companies to another company with a capital of BGN 2, on which registered address there were other 23 companies registered.

Nikolai Bashkilov of the BSP pointed out that Gamishev’s sold company had nearly 200,000 BGN tax liabilities, which the state cannot collect.

It is a complete mystery about how the sale of the company was registered by the Registry Agency provided it was on the list of big debtors in the country. MP Gamishev embodies the hypocrisy of GERB. If you are a member of GERB, you are allowed to not pay taxes, you are allowed to smuggle and master regional centres, Nikolai Boshkilov from BSP said.

GERB's reaction was not delayed. From the rostrum in Parliament, Spas Gurnevski, announced that Gamishev has already filed his resignation, and that once again GERB gives a clear message on how a responsible party should function. Gurnevski asked when the BSP would do the same for its lawmakers, indicating Manol Genov's vote buying case. Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the Chair of GERB Parliamentary Group, said the resignation of Gamishev is a worthy act.

I would like to address my colleagues from the BSP, who have been in a hurry to draw a topic to make another populism. When you give a moral assessment of your political opponent, you still have to look at yourself first, and BSP talking about morality, I think, is an absolutely insubstantiated thesis, Tsvetan Tsevtanov said.

Tsvetan Tsvetanov has assured that Gamishev will not continue to be the head of the municipal structure of GERB in Gotse Delchev.

Gamishev denied that his company had any liabilities at the time of the sale, and that the buyer was not without property.

Meanwhile, it became clear that the Prosecutor's Office has initiated a check based on anonymous signal against Gamishev. The signal revealed various facts about his financial situation and that of his family. At the beginning of the week, the Chief Prosecutor has self-initiated a check as a result of media publications describing another tax crime allegedly perpetrated by Gamishev.

Rumyana Arnaudova, spokesperson for the Prosecutor General, explained that it is about entering into a transaction with a commercial enterprise in order to avoid the establishment or, in the specific case, the payment of tax liabilities in particularly large amounts.

The Prosecutor's Office said it would also request the results of a check by the National Revenue Agency.