Will Bulgaria allow the IMF to squander the chance (for the umpteenth time) for speedy development? This is the big question before the trip of Finance Minister Milen Velchev to Washington for additional negotiations with the officers from the fund for the next agreement with Bulgaria.

The IMF has behaved in an unusually tough and poorly argued manner with the new cabinet in contrast to its hesitating and compromising behaviour up to now. It is difficult to see this other than as an attempt to intimidate the young Bulgarian ministers at an early stage.

The pressure from the IMF upon the economic team to give up their main program goals may lead to an early plummeting of trust in the cabinet and to take away in advance the chance for speedy growth. The initiation of stimuli for investment activity - the zero-tax on reinvested profit - was one of the major economic messages with which the cabinet took power.

In contrast to the IMF, which bears no responsibility to Bulgarian voters and business circles, the ministers from the National Movement Simeon II won the parliamentary elections with clear ideas for encouraging business and should not yield.

The model of the fund does not function in Bulgaria. Investments in Bulgaria, both foreign and local, are not sufficient at all. Obviously, to stay stable and poor, as the clerks from the IMF want, is not a good perspective for Bulgarian development. Anyway, if the fund is offering Bulgaria long-term poverty, then why do we need it anyway?

Kapital

Hippocrates hits rock bottom

A medical doctor yesterday wanted to talk, via a lawyer, about the fate of a patient waiting to be cured. A hospital refused for three days to transmit blood to a sick person. These facts became publicly known because it is not a common or garden hospital, but the richest one - the government one. The ignored patient is the recent boss of MobilTel, Vladimir Grashnov, who donated millions to the unfortunate Bulgarian healthcare system.

In the eyes of Hippocrates, it is said that all men are equal - at least this is the ideal doctors swear to abide by on the day they are sworn into their profession. We all know fatal mistakes happen as well. The lack of money also helps sickness to determine human fate. But how does one explain the unexplainable! Whether the sick patient was left without help deliberately or whether the hospital staff, in the hospital that has everything, was negligent. Is this lack of professionalism or state policy?

When the clinic, which was chosen to cure the country's statesmen, divides patients into ours and theirs, reliable and doomed, the moral fabric of society really has hit rock bottom.

Trud

Bravo for catching the killer! But why after four years?

Hurrah for the policemen, who on Friday caught an armed bandit near NDK, for the brilliantly executed, victimless job.

We can only keep our fingers crossed that their colleagues, who take over the case, do not fail, as already happened with the now famous drug dealer, Kiro the Japanese. He had been under investigation by 87 policemen since 1984 and was caught recently for possessing an illegal gun. And the court released him because the gun was not found exactly on Kiro the Japanese, but in his yard.

The police authorities also know the bandit caught the other day. In March 1997, with three associates of his, he was arrested on impressive charges - blackmailing, robbery and kidnapping. But, instead of ending up in prison, he only received the label "registered" with the police. Four years were not enough for him to enter court with an indictment!

The efforts of the new directors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fend off crime are discernible. No one expects miracles. But if these directors want to find their bearings in this case, they will have to ask their employees, and then the magistrates, why this registered man was still at large and armed.

Trud

Who has been eavesdropping and why?

There is something rotten in the story about the phone tapping which has been going on unnoticed for seven years in Sofia. From the statements of the former bosses of the Ministry of the Interior and special services, it turns out that a lot of people knew about the project, but, strangely enough, this operation has only now been ended. Have all the police bosses been too busy with other cases to stop the scheme which, as it turns out, was quite primitive and easy to carry out.

Maybe, again based on statements of directors of the Ministry of the Interior, people who worked in these stations carried out orders for business spying, and actually did not eavesdrop on politicians. In the long run, no matter how sizeable the undertaking is, the fact that it lasted for seven years, is quite suspicious. Also unclear remains the swift dismissal of 15-20 people from the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, possibly suspects in the scheme.

So the current bosses of the Ministry of the Interior and the special services deserve congratulations for what they did, but they also owe us a rather clearer and more detailed explanation - who has been eavesdropping for seven years and why, and who has been covering for them during this time?

24 Chassa