Never in Bulgaria’s recent history has a high-profile public employee been bashed by both the media and society with such vigour as in the case of the recently-ousted head of the National Revenue Agency (NRA) Maria Mourgina.

From the day when independent MP Yane Yanev asked Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski to fire Mourgina on February 8 because of alleged cover-ups of VAT fraud, the country’s whole attention focused on Mourgina and her past as if she was Bulgaria’s public enemy number one. The feeling was enforced by the State Agency for National Security (SANS) decision to withdraw Mourgina’s access to classified information, soon followed by her resignation, which was accepted immediately by Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev on February 12. From then on, the media was flooded by statements from public officials, magistrates, MPs, former cabinet officials and everyone who had anything to do with the country’s tax administration.

The opposition saw its chance to criticise the Government’s policy and Oresharski in particular for having supported Mourgina in the years that she headed NRA.  Although prosecutors involved in the NRA investigation declined to comment on the basis of the probe and how it was related to Mourgina’s resignation, a number of media, quoting their own sources from within the investigation, portrayed Mourgina as the biggest culprit of all. At a time when the European Commission continues to criticise Bulgaria for doing too little against corruption, Mourgina’s case could be a suitable example of the country’s crime-fighting efforts.    

The schemes
The charge against her that has been aired most frequently was that she covered up for various business people who allegedly were using fake companies to drain millions of leva from the state budget (some media talked about a billion leva) through VAT fraud schemes. Mourgina’s alleged role in the schemes was to "control" tax inspections of these companies. In some cases, some reports claimed, there was a list of companies that had managed to avoid being checked at all.

One such case was in the north-eastern town of Silistra where Mourgina allegedly suppressed a report from an NRA official in the town, Milena Tsolchovska, about a company owned by a politician from one of the ruling parties. Tsolchovska said that she had been called in by Mourgina and offered a transfer to Varna as a compromise, but refused and left the system. 
   
Further, it was reported that Mourgina had undertaken an internal restructuring at the NRA at the end of 2008, shutting down the internal audit and anti-corruption units. Sources leaked this to the media.

Another supposed scheme involved the software bought by the NRA to link its database system with that of the National Social Security Institute. The NRA spent $30 million on a complete failure because the system did not work in Bulgaria. How and why investigators have refused to say, but Mourgina was pictured as having spent $30 million of taxpayers’ money on something useless, sending NRA experts for training in Botswana where the system previously had been implemented.

The other scheme allegedly involved family ties. First it was alleged that Mourgina was living with a man whose companies had been part of the VAT fraud schemes, and later on the company of her son Marin Mourgin, providing tax consultations, was involved in the scheme.

Timeframe
All the allegations against Mourgina have one thing in common - that they are not new.

For years, opposition MPs have been claiming that certain business people close to the ruling parties have been draining millions of leva from the budget using VAT schemes. In Mourgina’s defence has been that VAT collection in Bulgaria has had one of the highest rates in Europe, something often cited by the World Bank as one of the country’s biggest achievements.

The Tsolchovska case broke more than six months ago and since then has been in the media spotlight.
The question of the company run by Mourgina’s son dates back to 2006 when she failed to say when filing her conflict-of-interest declaration that her son was a tax consultant. At the time, State Administration Minister Nikolai Vassilev defended Mourgina, saying that this did not show that Mourgin had benefited from his mother’s position.    

As to the NRA’s software, the subject of the most recent allegations, a SANS investigation into the issue was announced in January this year after the NSSI found discrepancies in the data coming from NRA for more than 500 000 taxpayers. However, it was Mourgina who in 2006 said that the company supplying the software was behind schedule and the NRA was going to ask for compensation.     

Survivor
If there is one point on which it seems everyone can agree, it is that Mourgina has survived in her job under three different Cabinets. She joined the tax authority in 1997 as deputy chief tax director. In 2000-2004 she was manager of the project for the creation of NRA and after 2003 was NRA deputy executive director.

The news about her appointment as NRA head in 2005, three months after the current Government came to power, was received with surprise because she has not been seen as a political candidate. As former deputy finance minister Georgi Kadiev said, her appointment was a compromise since she did not enjoy the support of any of the three ruling parties. Now after living for three years with this "compromise" and four months ahead of the next elections for Parliament, it seems that authorities have decided to show no compromise with Mourgina.