The Ministry for Disaster Management was established in August 2005, by a resolution of the 40th National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria. In the beginning of 2008,  it proved to be one of the greatest controversies in the country. More and more people are questioning the necessity of such an institution, as it is spending large sums of money and at the same time it is highly ineffective against all kinds of “disasters and accidents”, even the snow in winter. The response of Disaster Minister Emel Etem made the situation even worse, “the main priority (and responsibility) of the ministry is prevention and not snow cleanup”.

The obvious question is – do we need a whole ministry just to write the National Programme for Protection against Disasters?

In fact Etem was wrong. The ministry is the legal successor of the state agency for civil protection, established in 1936. In this sense Etem’s ministry is responsible for all activities of civil protection and the protection of population in the event of disasters. Still, everything that refers to organisation, co-ordination and management of the rescue and emergency recovery activities is concentrated in the Main Directorate “National Service Civil Protection” part of the ministry. In other words, the old structure of “civil protection” is practically the same. Nothing has changed in terms of organisation and efficiency, but it has changed dramatically in terms of administration numbers and ability to spend money.

Ministry at a glance
The Ministry for  Disaster Management has 2541 employees and a budget of 214 million leva for 2008. There are 1750 employees in the administrative structures of the ministry and a further 791 employees in the State Agency State Reserve and War-time Stocks. The budget of the ministry is increasing every year and it is expected that in 2009 the budget will be twice that in 2007.

The Main Directorate National Service Civil Protection has 28 territorial units and a total of 1369 employees, which is about 80 per cent of all of the employees in the ministry (if we do not count the State Agency State Reserve). All of the employees in the directorate have no duty other than to protect the population and to take real (visible) actions on the spot. Nevertheless, only 466 of them participate in the 16 units established to carry out emergency rescue actions in the event of disasters.

Of 1750 employees in the administrative structures of the ministry, only 466 are actually involved in saving lives. That’s about a quarter of the employees in the ministry, while the other 75 per cent (1284 employees) are supposed to organise those 466 people in the units and, of course, write the National Programme for Protection at Disasters. The truth is that we do not know what these people do. They are in the territorial units of the ministry and there is a huge lack of information about what is happening there. Still, even if we do not know much about the every-day life of these people at their work place, the figures are sufficient to say that there is a huge opportunity for optimisation and greater efficiency in the Bulgarian civil protection system, without even looking at its budget.

However, the budget of the ministry is interesting too. Total spending on actual civil protection activities in 2008 will be about 50 million leva or about 23 per cent of the entire budget of the ministry. An amount of 133 million leva (more than half of the entire budget) will be spent by the State Agency State Reserve and War-time Stocks for accumulation, maintenance, refreshing and accounting of the state reserves and war-time stocks. In other words, in 2008 the Government of Bulgaria will interfere heavily on the agricultural market, causing more problems rather than helping this highly important sector for the country. This is the only sector where production is decreasing, according to the latest data, and harms the growth of the economy.

Vision of the Future Civil Protection System
It is obvious that every country needs such a structure to protect its people. Still, if we take a look at other European countries we will see that there are no similar ministries there. The function of “civil protection” is either undertaken by a special state agency, governed directly by the cabinet (as in Bulgaria before 2005) or is under the jurisdiction of the defence ministry (as was the case in Bulgaria before 2001) or the interior ministry. In the first case (special state agency), the civil protection system is highly flexible with minimum administration needed. In the second case, the administration is still lower than the present case in Bulgaria and at the same time there is much better co-ordination between the authorities responsible for the security of citizens. The lack of co-ordination was easily visible in Bulgaria over the first days of the new year.

If we have to put it in the simplest terms, the whole ministry, with its 1750 employees (without those in the “State Reserve”), and spending of about 214 million leva can be easily turned back into a state agency, governed directly by the Cabinet, cutting the staff and the budget by at least half. This proposition even includes the creation of additional units to carry out emergency rescue actions attached to every territorial unit in the country. The idea is simple – 28 territorial units with 28 units to carry out emergency rescue actions in the event of disasters. There should be no cuts in the rescue teams (just restructuring to fill the new teams), but there should be huge optimisation of the administration of those units. The number of people who co-ordinate and administrate those rescue teams should be significantly less than the rescue units themselves.

So, the main question was: Do we need a whole ministry just to write the National Program for Protection at Disasters? Well, my answer is no. We do not need a pro-forma protection. We need rescue teams, we need people who can save lives and we need someone to cleanup the snow. None of these things has ever been put in place by the more than 1000 people in the administration of the ministry.