Sixteen officials of the Sofia Traffic Police unit, including its head, will be punished for violations, including failure to exercise control and disappearance and destruction of documents, Interior Minister Mihail Mikov told a news conference Wednesday.

Mikov also said that following a recent check into the work of Sofia's fifth police precinct, ten of its staff will receive disciplinary sanctions while the head of a unit in it will be dismissed.

The Interior Minister said that there will be no dismissals on account of the January 21 death of a 29 year old man, Plamen Koutsarov, held in custody, following which eight disciplinary proceedings were ordered against police officers with the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (DCOC) under the Directorate General for Criminal Police. Mikov said that the heaviest punishment in connection with this will be imposed to four DCOC officials who escorted the deceased. They will be demoted for a term of one year and re-located to other precincts. The head of their division will not be allowed to participate in competitions for career growth. Two operatives and two other officials will be sanctioned.

The check into the case established violations of several rules for the detention and escorting of people and for the use of handcuffs. Mikov said that if new circumstances are found showing greater violations, the punishments may be changed.

Mikov rejected the idea put forward by the Chairman of the parliamentary Internal Security and Public Order Committee Mincho Spassov to increase the remuneration to the people working in the system of the Interior Ministry using proceeds from sales of real estate the Ministry does not need. Mikov said that in the conditions of falling property prices such a move will be ill-advised.

Mikov confirmed that the bulk of the Interior Ministry budget goes towards labour remuneration so that the staff will have to be streamlined. However, he declined to say a concrete figure of job cuts.

After a hearing of Mikov by the Internal Security and Public Order Committee, Spassov said that the annual maintenance costs of the Interior Ministry will be spent by the end of March so that additional subsidies from the central government budget will have to be sought. Spassov described this as bad news.

Mikov said at the hearing that 63,000 staff is the threshold below which the Interior Ministry cannot cope with the security problems in the country. He said he does not plan radical cuts but will ask heads of units to say which jobs can be cut.

Floor leader of the right-wing opposition Democrats for Strong Bulgaria Yordan Bakalov told reporters after the hearing that the big problem of the ruling majority is that it lacks the strength, will and vision to carry out reforms which can be felt by any Bulgarian.

Source: BTA, Photo: BGNES