February 3 (BTA) - In a letter to the National Assembly Chairman, the outgoing head of the Counter-corruption and Unlawfully Acquired Assets Forfeiture Commission (CCUAAFC), Sotir Tsatsarov, says that the 2022 state budget bill tabled in Parliament differs from the draft submitted to the CCUAAFC for coordination. The version approved by the Council of Ministers on February 1 has 89 paragraphs more than the one the Finance Ministry sent to the CCUAAFC a week earlier. A copy of Tsatsarov's letter was received by BTA on Thursday.

Tsatsarov describes as a violation of the CCUAAFC Act the fact that the additional paragraphs have not been coordinated by the Counter-corruption Commission, and these introduce significant amendments to a series of statutory instruments that are not directly related to the subject matter regulated by the State Budget Act. Article 32 of the CCUAAFC Act stipulates that the Commission coordinates every bill prepared by the Executive to check for the presence of corruption risk and subsequently analyzes the bill's impact, Tsatsarov specifies.

Also violated is a text from the Rules of Organization of the Council of Ministers and its Administration, whereby every bill has to be sent to the CCUAAFC for coordination regarding the presence of corruption risk. The CCUAAFC is thus deprived of the opportunity, in case it establishes there is risk of corruption, to propose counter-corruption measures to the bill's sponsors, Tsatsarov argues./RY/DS