Third national protest of road construction companies

The third national protest of the Roads Branch Chamber continues. The protest started at 8:30 in the morning on October 8 in front of the ministry of regional development, but later moved to the Council of Ministers. They demanded a payment of BGN 800 million, which the state owes to the workers for the work done. It became clear that caretaker Minister of Regional Development, Violeta Komitova, would not immediately receive the protesters.

The protesting road construction companies demanded the resignation of Violeta Komitova, she invited them to a meeting next week.

"Our demands are to ensure payment by the end of the year of at least 600 million and a reasonable perspective for the payment of the remaining funds," said Stefan Tchaikov, chairman of the board of Roads Branch Chamber.

"Ms. Komitova should contact her colleagues from the Ministry of Finance and understand that there is a surplus of over 2 billion every month, she must find a way to pay them off, as these people have found a way to do their job," added Georgi Zlatev.

The position of the regional development ministry for the meeting that did not take place is that Minister Komitova has explicitly emphasised that she invited managers of road construction companies to a meeting, and in fact only representatives of the Bulgarian Branch Chamber came to the meeting.

"Both last year and the year before, the companies were in the same situation. That is, in the same way they were waiting for some money that they did not have in contracts or in the state budget. Provided that the previous year and the year before, they were in the same financial situation - why are they protesting now? And why are they now refusing to come and talk to us? " Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Ivan Shishkov, said.

images by Dessislava Kulelieva