The inspections at the Bulgarian State Railways have established certain administrative violations. This was revealed by Minister of Transport Georgi Todorov on the air of „bTV“, specifying that he would announce details tomorrow.
„The inspections at Bulgarian State Railways are over. A final audit report is presented. I have reason to read the report and the explanations in its entirety and make my decision tomorrow.“
Since the beginning of this year, 4,710 trains of “Passenger Transport” and 556 trains of “Freight Transport” have been delayed, the caretaker minister said. According to him, in this way freight transport loses its main shippers and this is not good, because the market is liberalized and customers can turn to any of the other licensed carriers.
„I have yet to investigate the reasons. (…) A shipper on a competitive basis might or might not prefer “Passenger Transport”. They certainly have a loss of major shippers, probably due to the less competitive conditions they provide. With regard to „Passenger Transport“, delays are a problem. Every passenger who wants to travel from point A to point B counts that he will arrive on time. This shows the poor quality of the service itself, together with the poor hygiene in the wagons, inevitably leads to an outflow of potential users of this service.“
At the moment, the Bulgarian State Railways holding is at a „sufficiently large loss„, Todorov pointed out and reported that the company has approximately BGN 20 million in liabilities for non-payment of infrastructure fees.
The caretaker minister also reminded that the first inspection appointed by him was in connection with the financial condition of the department. According to him, no budget shortcomings were identified.
