It is good that the Parliament has decided to find out how the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works absorbed the funds under the programmes PHARE and ISPA in the period 1999 – 2003, because this will enhance the objective analysis and assessm

It is good that the Parliament has decided to find out how the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works absorbed the funds under the programmes PHARE and ISPA in the period 1999 – 2003, because this will enhance the objective analysis and assessment of the implemented work. This was announced by the Regional Development and Public Works Minister Valentin Cerovski at a press conference at the Council of Ministers. The Minister added that at the same time he is of the opinion that this act has also a purely political dimension and its goal is not to ascertain the work, which has been implemented in fact. He underlined that the committee is set up at a moment when the final coordination of Chapter 21 Regional Policy is under way, and it is about to be closed. The signals, which have been sent, are not beneficial for the speed-up and termination of that process. We are apprehensive that the work of the committee might delay the start of some projects under PHARE – Cross Border Cooperation and the forthcoming start of the project Ecotourism under PHARE – Economic and Social Cohesion, as well as the current tender under ISPA for construction of wastewater treatment plants in Stara Zagora and Dimitrovgrad. Yet, I hope that the team of the MRDPW will successfully finalize those procedures and the funds allocated under the pre-accession programmes will be efficiently contracted, said Minister Cerovski. He emphasized that since the beginning of 2003 at the MRDPW explicit rules have been established for the work of the implementing agencies Programme PHARE and Programme ISPA, public tenders have been carried out, and owing to the efforts five out of six total grant schemes under PHARE – Economic and Social Cohesion, which were imminent to be cancelled, have been saved. Photo: Ljubomir Datsov, Deputy Minister of Finance, and Minister Valentin Cerovski /in the middle/ PR & International Relations Directorate