“FEAR AND BUSINESS– V²²²”
Or
“Did they die for you, Bulgaria?”
². How were they dying?
It’s Friday, the first of august 1918, 1044th day of war. A day off for the army. The 15-th anniversary of the Ilinden-Preobrajenie uprising is being celebrated. Company commanders are holding discussions with the soldiers about the course and significance of the uprising. After the active airplane enemy action over Kojuh mountain near the position of 18th ETAR INFANTRY REGIMENT of HIS MAJESTY TSAR FERDINAND, there are written on paper messages disgracing the Bulgarian government, army and people.
For the period of 40 years, about three million people, who left outside the borders of the country after the Russo-Turkish war, had Bulgaria as a symbol, excitement, light and hope in the darkness of the shadows of ottomans, megalians, serbo. 18th Etar infantry regiment is an elite unit part of 5th Danube division, whose training, development, weapons and combat agility are under the direct leadership of Tsar Ferdinand.
There was an immediate reaction towards the insults against Motherland – a patrol attack on Ostra chuka hill aiming at capturing prisoners of war and destruction of the headquarters of 1st battalion from 122nd French regiment. At 21,30 a 36-volunteer patrol, soldiers who were well armed and proficient in the Bulgarian martial art with a bayonet, fire and butt, manage to penetrate behind enemy lines, find the headquarters and bomb with 150 hand grenades, capture two officers and three soldiers. They managed to pull behind the front line, where they reached an enemy artillery mine, killing the commander of the patrol and seven Bulgarian soldiers; other seventeen were injured. The wounded and the unharmed soldiers manage to carry the dead bodies of their comrades and deliver the prisoners alive to the front barrier if the regiment. On the next day, 3rd August 1918 at 18.00 ÷àñà the dead bodies are buried with military honors in a common grave in the school-church yard in Negorci village Gevgelija region. There is a magnificent memorial on their grave, which was later desecrated, just the way many other national constructive efforts and sanctuaries would be desecrated in the next 100 years; I will discuss this later.
²². The relation
I remember an election speech delivered by the ex prime minister Sergei Stanishev, which stated that he has seen some wordings on a wall:”I love my country; I hate the state!”. Deeply moved by this wording, the prime minister promised to change this status and had his term” trying to do so”; however, it did not happen! Actually, it was just the opposite!
It was not a long time ago when I heard a hectic statesman claim that the state’s task is to create better conditions to do business, but I was not sure which state he was talking about( such a thing in Bulgaria has not been happening for the last 20 years now). I met a man who first worked as a tax official and then in the Financial Supervision Commission( we have met each other on business meetings-that’s how I know him), and finally he decided to give up the state job and start his own private business. We chatted a bit and we reached to the inevitable question, to which all such chats eventually reach- I asked him what did he do at present; he replied that he was really devastated by bureaucracy, incompetence and corruption and then he asked me:” hey, how do you deal with people like me? When I was a clerk doing state job, I was not aware what I was doing to the people opposite me(opposite you…? You, so dear to the whole country…), but now I am appalled with reality. Tell me, how do you manage this?”. A brief reply followed– „With elbow grease!” , and felt pity, not for him, not for me either, but for all those two thousand soldier who died in the name of a holy and free life in Bulgaria, who left their children fatherless and the generations behind them to the long existing phenomenon, which should be best qualified as bureaucracy and all of its derivates. His claqueurs, as if disgusted with reading Codex Gigas, are most often hypocritical and string along with society, often without any special reason or even with deceitful motives, revolve the whip of bureaucracy boldly, albeit clumsily, yet insistently. Some bureaucrats even try to run government departments or subdivisions thereof, as private Ltd.s, so gorged with powers that they seriously perceive the state as their private property.
²²². Amazing facts.
1. there are such facts in the official complicated interpretations of some pages written because there had been a request for approval of own funds under art. 11 from Regulation 21 of the Financial Supervision Commission. These pages argue about the difference of the net premium reserves and the Zillmer reserves of the same financial portfolio. The final conclusion is drawn that there is no such thing? Which means that there is an argument about the difference between the premium reserves of the same insurances, which have been calculated differently. Eventually, it is claimed that there is no difference between the two reserves if you make calculations of one or a group of insurances on the net premium, and then you do same with the Zillmer reserve! Oh, yes- you want own funds, but it won’t happen!
2. what about the competence of some portfolio analysts, who seem to notice Zillmer quotas in risk and additional life insurances. If you file a complaint, as the law rules, you will be put the black stigma, and are being harassed with silent refusals and inspections throughout the whole year; you are required, within suffocating due dates, to hand in tens of thousands of documents and hundreds of thousands of numerical positions subject to precise calculations; thus, you have no alternative but oblige your subordinates to do extra work- more than twelve hours, including holidays, such as Easter. This a classic case of harassment and quality stress for the staff.
3. Or, the case when you are applied a compulsory administrative measure printed with a semantic error; you follow the measure verbatim and precisely, and then it is announced, perhaps under the laws of moral deficiency, that you are the one who made a mistake, not them.
4. But the best case of ours is when we are given specific instructions on how to draw up a statement, and then we get fined with extreme conclusions, because we have compiled the documents in accordance with their instructions, and the witness of the person who gives us a fine is the one who has given the respective instructions!
„...you are just going crazy!”
5. the nonpareil is in a letter with Reference ¹ 04-13-72/17.05.2010 written by the ex head of Insurance supervision department at the Financial Supervision Commission Mr. Emil Atanasov, addressed to the Minister of Finance. Briefly summarized, the letter has the following information:
Emil Atanasov notifies Mr. Dyankov that:
1. SiVZK makes accounting deductions.
2. SiVZK members often use the tax incentives pursuant to art. 19, par.2 from the Personal Income Tax Act.
3. The insurance premiums, negotiated by SiVZK are not fixed, and the contracts state the way these premiums are defined, although this action is allowed by art.184, par. 3, p.6 of the Insurance Code.
4. SiVZK, in the contracts makes interpretations( explain in their own word) the tax legislature, although we are obliged to do this according to the regulation of art.185, par.1, p.12 from the Insurance Code.
5. SiVZK, in their official papers, announce to the loan receivers that the loans are not considered income and are not liable to tax imposition or insurance contributions.
If I were to receive this letter, I would probably write the following reply: Yes, that’s right, Mr. Atanasov; that’s how we do it and that’s how it should be done:
- so what if we make accounting deductions and shorten cash flows. This an action that should be encouraged; even the state is aiming at this.
- so what if some members use tax incentives or other rights granted by law. Rights are designed for this purpose- to be used by those who can and have the opportunity to.
- so what if we comply with the regulations of the Insurance Code. The insured individual should be informed fully, and not partially, shouldn’t they?.
- so what if we clarify the Personal Income Tax Act to some simple ordinary people?”.
And still- yes, yes…but no – as it was said by one of our journalists. It turns out that many bureaucrats desire the civil rights to be on paper only- so that we can boast ourselves in Brussels; they should not be used, for the reason that, because, however, finally… Let us have all those who are longing for rights!
Just in case, you should not have the impression that everything is a hollow nut- inside, there are intentions, which are so arrogant that they go beyond our imagination; the prosecution will be introduced to them first. By saying prosecution, I ask myself: “if Mr. Atanasov found something wrong about SiVZK, why hadn’t he used his right under art. 16, p.22 from the Law of Financial Supervision Commission to notify the prosecution, but instead his pathetic report to the authorities violates the Constitution of Republic of Bulgaria under art.2,par.4 from the Law of Financial Supervision Commission, and it also contradicts the oath he has taken before the Parliament under art.5, par.3 from the Law of Financial Supervision Commission, just like that, as if they do not exist.
Reading the last sentence of this letter, I must admit that ” the author will be available for the future, etc”, i.e. he is ready to violate the above cited regulations. I qualify this homophobic hobbism as being the winner, according to the context of my own horizons and meaningful life, in I gather my impressions for half a century.
This situation is completed by the fact that honorable officials of the Financial Supervision Commission, willing to differentiate themselves from the actions of a group of some overweening officials, notified me about the case and about the, let’s say, weird behavior of another person, who probably “held Atanasov’s hand” and signed all the above mentioned reports. This blew my patience and tolerance out.
I am really sorry that all of this, which is only the tip of the iceberg, is happening in this business branch; it’s happening in the non-banking sector of the financial industry; it’s happening in Bulgaria!
It wasn’t that they died for!
I am just fed up. I swore on the grave of one of my few true friends that I will not be silent anymore. What goes around, comes around; “two eyes for an eye and the whole jaw for a tooth”
In fact, it’s all so simple. The wrong can be corrected with the termination of some mean officials’ chance to overuse their powers. This process is generated by those texts from the Law of Financial Supervision Commission which say that”… the appeal does not suspend the execution of the respective administrative act…„. Why and to whom it is needful to be empowered with powers similar to those which were available to the Jesuit Order of Ignatius Loyola? Why are the insurers deprived of the opportunity to use, like all others, a true arbitration, especially when the above mentioned phenomena are existing.
However, since I am well aware that no authority likes to part with its powers, I really hope that the new team of the Financial Supervision Commission will have the morality of good people, otherwise – oh, you poor insurance, although the parabolic reading of art.2, p.2 from the Insurance Code says: “Insurance should be backed up!” I really hope, it will be- for you, Bulgaria!
B. Georgiev, chairman of SiVZK
