23 June 2023
The Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva signalled the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Andrey Tsekov on the occasion of the public consultation of a bill amending Decree No. 18/2015 of the Council of Ministers approving a National Programme for Energy Efficiency of Multi-family Residential Buildings.
The bill affects the rights of homeowners in 52 buildings that will not be renovated under the Programme due to lack of financial resources. The deficit amounts to approximately BGN 46 million.
“Citizens and citizens’ associations whose involvement in the Programme has failed to bring any results for seven years now seized the Ombudsman. The homeowners complain that due to no fault on their part for the incurred delays or inflation, they will be affected by the suspension of the Programme envisaged in the transitional provisions of the bill. They further doubt the impossibility to secure the necessary financial resources for the energy-related renovation of the said 52 buildings. They point to the lack of transparency in selecting the buildings to be renovated under the Programme”, Diana Kovacheva reiterated.
“In practice we [the homeowners] have been approved following the respective procedure. However, our homes will not be renovated, and this is extremely unfair”, the applicants say.
The Ombudsman underscored that the procedure concerning the buildings was at different stages: a procurement procedure for the selection of an external contractor (“engineering”) has been carried out for 13 of the 52 multi-family residential buildings but thereafter no public service contract has been concluded with the selected contractor precisely due to the unconfirmed financial resources.
Prof. Kovacheva is adamant that the bill affects unreasonably the citizens’ legitimate expectations of sanitation of the respective buildings once the owners have rendered significant efforts to comply with the statutory requirements.
She points out that the affected citizens’ associations have not been able to apply within the set time limit of 31 May 2023 under “Support for sustainable energy renovation of residential buildings – stage I” Procedure of the National Plan for Recovery and Sustainability through Selection of Applications for the Implementation of Investments by Final Beneficiaries of submeasure “Support for sustainable energy renovation of residential buildings”. Grants covering 100 of the eligible costs are envisaged under the first stage of this submeasure. However, to apply, homeowners are required to terminate their contracts for targeted funding under the Programme.
Diana Kovacheva is adamant that this violates the equality principle enshrined in the “Support for sustainable energy renovation of residential buildings – stage I” Procedure.
The public defender underscores further that the documents published for public consultation do not display data about the amounts that have already been paid for technical and energy performance audits for the buildings for which the contracts will be terminated.
Kovacheva suggests that an appropriate financial mechanism be established to settle in a lawful and fair manner the rights of the homeowners in the 52 affected buildings satisfying not only their legitimate expectations but the public interest as well in implanting in full the positive economic, social and environmental impact of the Programme.
Prof. Kovacheva further established defects in the procedure for public consultation due to non-compliance as well as violation of the Law on Normative Acts. She recommended that a new public consultation procedure be launched.
The Ombudsman paid particular attention to the fact that as of 21 June 2023 the partial ex-ante impact assessment published in the public consultations portal referred to a different bill than the one under consideration.
“The published impact assessment concerns a decree of the Council of Ministers adopting a Regulation for determining the terms and procedure for granting support through financial instruments, combining grants and financial instruments, implementing financial instruments and management and control rules”, the public defender underscored.
She added further that the ex-ante impact assessment was accessible only on the website of the Ministry for Regional Development.
Kovacheva is adamant in her opinion that the failure to publish the ex-ante impact assessment is a violation of Article 26(3) of the Law on Normative Acts, which requires that a new public consultation procedure be launched.