Some hours of confusion about whether Bulgaria's National Revenue Agency (NRA) head Maria Mourgina had resigned or merely was going on 10 days' leave ended when the Cabinet confirmed that Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev had approved her request to resign.

The resignation was a sequel to allegations that senior NRA officials were complicit in siphoning of value-added tax (VAT) by criminal groups. The allegations led to opposition MPs calling for Mourgina to accept responsibility as the head of the agency and leave office.

On February 12 2009, the NRA issued a statement saying that Mourgina had resigned. A few hours later, the Finance Ministry issued a statement saying that she had not resigned but was going on 10 days' leave with immediate effect. A few hours after that, the agency said that Mourgina had quit. This was swiftly followed by confirmation that her resignation had been accepted.

Mourgina said that she had resigned because of the NRA's failure to meet its target and because "decisions of certain state institutions in respect of the work of the NRA are announced via the mass media".

Media reports on February 12 alleged that the State Agency for National Security (SANS) has suspended Mourgina's access to confidential information.

This was, the reports claimed, linked to pre-trial proceedings against top NRA officials who were being investigated in connection with alleged links to tax evasion.

On February 7, Order, Law and Justice party leader Yane Yanev said that NRA top officials and employees from regional departments were involved in large-scale siphoning of VAT. He called on Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski to fire Mourgina because she was responsible for the actions of NRA staff.

Speaking in Parliament on February 12,  Yanev and MP Dimitar Abadzhiev said that "for the past 12 months in Bulgaria, organised criminal firms with the protection of certain politicians, have been responsible for funneling out of VAT funds in enormous quantities".

"The extraction of budget funds from VAT is estimated at about one billion leva, and this is devastating for a country like Bulgaria in the middle of economic crisis. The damage for Bulgaria is greater than the annual sum Bulgaria pays the European Union," Abadzhiev said.

The biggest damage for the national budget comes from  companies conducting fictitious exports to Romania, Russian and Ukraine. The second most damaging was fictitious export of alcohol. Furthermore, irregularities and illegal fictitious transactions were detected in the construction sector.

"We live in a criminal country, governed by a shameless organised political mafia," Yanev said.

He said that Mourgina was responsible for the NRA, and the systematic funneling of VAT funds by criminal groups and oligarchs had a large role in shrinking the National Gold Reserve.