The Bulgarian Interior Ministry is in serious financial crisis, owing 65 million leva for 2009, a debt that is undermining its effectiveness and quality of work, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told police labour unions, quoted by Dnevnik daily on December 1 2009.

In addition to the large financial debt, Borislav Maznev, head of the police labour union, told Bulgarian media that not a single one of their demands from the summer of 2009 had been met to date. Tsvetanov said, however, that in spite of the precarious financial situation, social benefits of police officers and staff of the ministry would not be revoked.

Tsevtanov said that the Financial Ministry had been persuaded to maintain the status quo whereby Interior Ministry staff will keep their privileges such as free usage of public transport while on duty. Apparently, the aforementioned benefits were supposed to be slashed when the 2010 Budget was discussed in the Parliamentary commissions, but eventually the Financial Ministry backed down.

One of the issues cited by the labour unions was that police patrols lacked sufficient petrol to maintain the presence required, to which the Interior Ministry released 700 000 litres of petrol to keep patrols operating as per usual, Dnevnik reported.

Apart from the financial strangulation, an additional glaring obstacle was the lack of 800 personnel in the Sofia department of the Interior Ministry. The lack of staff is seriously affecting operations, while "the financial crisis within the ministry has never been so severe", Tsvetanov told Dnevnik daily on December 2 2009. He said that in the final week of November 2009 the entire ministry had faced a power cut because of unpaid dues.

Breaking down the 65 million leva debt, 23 million leva was for uniform allowances, 15 million leva for financial compensation of former staff, 2.7 million leva for food, 4.4 million leva for electricity, 6.1 million leva for taxes owed to different municipalities, eight million leva for "other ongoing expenses" and a further 1.9 million for petrol and others.

Tsvetanov said that the Bulgarian State Rail (BDZ) owes the Interior Ministry 14 million leva for providing security personnel. He also said that 40 million leva, allocated to the ministry from the Budget surplus in 2008, had been spent "very irresponsibly by the previous administration".