Only The Poorest Bulgarian Pensioners Get Christmas Bonuses

We sat and watched the news of this on television and a great big sigh was given by Baba who will be entitled to this as she is in the poverty bracket for entitlement. I suppose that fact alone makes sense, namely to give it to those who need it most, but its half of what is was last year. Working class pensioners are always the ones who suffer due to the low rate of pension they get in the first place and most have worked all their lives for peanuts. Let’s hope next year the bonus is increased.

About 1.1 million pensioners will get one-off 25 leva Christmas bonuses added to their regular pension payments, the Bulgarian Government's website said on December 13 2009. Pensioners will get the money after the Christmas holidays on January 4 2010. Only pensioners whose monthly pensions are less than 200 leva will get the bonus. The money will come from funds made available by cost-cutting by the state administration "and this is the maximum amount of money we can spent on pensioners' bonuses this year," Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said after meeting Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov. The reason why other Bulgarian pensioners, who number 1.2 million people, will not get bonuses this year was that the Budget could only afford bonuses only for those people who were in dire financial straits. Last year, all Bulgaria's pensioners got a 50 leva Christmas bonus. To get the funds, Borissov asked all ministries and other state bodies not to give Christmas bonuses to their employees, although some such as Agriculture Ministry had made the required cuts to spending. Borissov apologised to state administration employees for not giving them their traditional Christmas bonuses this year, and said that together with Dyankov, he was working on a scheme to compensate for this in 2010.

Source: www.sofiaecho.com