Financial controls exercised by the Government was inefficient and needed to be tightened up to prevent European Union funds being frozen over suspicions of malfeasance, Bulgarian auditors union said on July 2, as reported by Dnevnik daily.

Insufficient effective control over spending and weak preventive controls were the main reasons for the numerous breaches of legislation, the daily said.

The problem was that internal auditors were too dependent on the management of the institutions they worked for, according to the chairperson of the economists and auditors union with KNSB labour unions bloc, Ivailo Ouzounov, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

It did not help that auditors were never held accountable for their reports, since all they could do was make suggestions, the chairperson of the accountants union Ivan Doushanov said.

The main suggestion is for a new auditing directorate at the Finance Ministry to be set up, which would be charged with overseeing auditors in state institutions and verify how taxpayer money is spent, Dnevnik said.