Silistra municipal councillors have rejected proposed changes to the rules governing the work of the Municipal Council, which were intended to improve attendance at committee meetings, make councillors’ pay fairer and increase transparency.

The most significant proposals would have linked councillors’ remuneration to their membership of standing committees and created an online register of absences, showing the reason for each absence and the percentage deducted from the councillor’s allowance.

The aim was to encourage attendance at committee meetings and make the reasons for absences publicly available.

As “Za Istinata” previously reported, the proposed amendments followed investigations by “Za Istinata” and “Mesten Reporter” which revealed that a number of Silistra councillors had been receiving full remuneration despite failing to attend meetings.

The amendments were initiated by the temporary commission tasked with updating the Municipal Council’s rules and its chairwoman, associate professor Temenuzhka Bogdanova.

The proposal was modelled on the system used by the Veliko Tarnovo Municipal Council, where citizens can access a public register containing detailed information on councillors’ absences, the reasons given and the percentage of their remuneration withheld.

During the month-long public consultation, counterproposals were also submitted.

Without providing any reasons, councillor Stoil Stoychev of the “Left” coalition proposed that all the amendments put forward for consultation should be scrapped. The commission rejected the proposal as inadmissible, arguing that it was not a substantive amendment but a request to reject the proposals, which should instead be decided by a vote.

When the proposed changes were subsequently discussed by the standing committees, they were unanimously approved by the councillors present, with the exception of Gancho Nedelchev, who voted against.

But immediately before the full council vote, “Za Istinata” reports that, following discussions in the council chairman’s office, Nedelchev – a member of the Social Democratic Party, which provided the electoral mandate for Rumen Radev’s “Progressive Bulgaria” – proposed that the measures linking remuneration to committee attendance and establishing the public register of absences be removed.

His proposal was then put to a vote and passed with 16 votes in favour. One of those votes came from council chairman Dimitar Trendafilov, whose support proved decisive.

The rejection of the reforms triggered a serious dispute between councillors who supported the changes and those who opposed them.

“We no longer trust Municipal Council chairman Dimitar Trendafilov. People cannot simply call him on the phone and tell him what to do, and he cannot gather only some councillors at the last minute before a meeting in order to organise a sabotage of the reforms through an unsubstantiated proposal to scrap them,” several councillors who had supported the reforms told “Za Istinata”.

Trendafilov denied that there had been any conspiracy, but defended his opposition to the measures – opposition that ultimately helped defeat them.

The position marks a reversal from one he had taken only weeks earlier, when he publicly supported the reforms.

In an interview with Bulgarian National Radio, Trendafilov had argued that the changes were needed because councillors were currently treated unequally.

“Some serve on only one committee, others on three, but they all receive the same remuneration,” he said at the time.

He has now changed his position.

It is no secret that for some councillors receiving the full allowance – around €500 a month – is important, and that the prospect of losing part of it is a sensitive issue.

Evidence of this emerged in the rush by some councillors to seek membership of additional committees shortly before the reforms were due to be voted on, as previously reported by “Za Istinata”.

With the proposed changes now rejected, that incentive has disappeared. Councillors serving on one committee will continue to receive the same remuneration as those serving on three.

Under the current system in Silistra, councillors can receive their full allowance even without attending a single council meeting during a given month, provided they submit notification citing a legitimate reason for their absence.