Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov, one of the biggest advocates of slimming down public administration, set an example for other Cabinet ministers, announcing on September 8 that his ministry would make 14 per cent of its staff redundant by the end of the year.

About 10 per cent of the current staff would be sacked by October 1 and the rest by the end of the year. The decision will affect 90 people from the ministry's current payroll of 700, Dnevnik daily said.

The ministry's restructuring will include the creation of new analytical and planning department, which will, among other duties, track research reports by foreign analysts.

The ministry will also get back the agency fighting financial crimes, which was moved under the umbrella of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) when SANS was set up in January 2008. However, the agency was never properly integrated into SANS and will once again become a part of the Finance Ministry, Dyankov was quoted as saying.

More structural changes, meant to improve the functioning of the National Revenue Agency and Customs Agency, would be announced by the end of the week, Dnevnik said.

The goal is to cut spending and increase revenue collection, with Bulgaria facing a 2.5 billion leva Budget deficit this year, according to an earlier statement by Dyankov in August.

Under his plan, part of the looming deficit would be covered by a 15 per cent cut in the budgets allocated to state institutions for 2009, which will save 1.16 billion leva on the spending side of the Budget, he said at the time. The rest is expected to come from improving revenue collection.