After more than one year of negotiations between Sofia municipality and Parliament over the privatisation of Toplofikatsiya Sofia, the two institutions were stuck with the question of who would pick up the bill for the consultants, mediapool.bg reported.

On October 2, a mediapool.bg source at the municipality said that a consultant for the privatisation was not selected yet because there was no money to pay the consultant.

Around 1.5 million euro would be needed to pay a consultancy agency for advise to the municipality and the state on how to restructure and after that to sell its property, mediapool.bg said.

Theoretically, the consultants' bill could be paid from Toplofikatsiya's turnover, because the company is an independent entity, registered under Bulgaria's Trade Law. At the moment there is not enough money in the company to pay the consultant.

The question is very delicate, as mediapool.bg reports, with the local elections so nearby, paying a consultant out of money from clients would be politically a highly unpopular decision.

A proposal to pay the consultant out of the 15 million euro credit from the World Bank for changing part of the heating installation was blocked by Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski who refused to release the funds for any other use than what the credit was given for.

Municipality and ministry decided to follow the third possible procedure, mediapool.bg said, which was to announce a competition for a consultant with the condition that the consultant would pay for the analysis under the consultation. The fee would then simply be added to the price that the buyer would pay for Toplofikatsiya Sofia, was the reasoning.

Unless the consultant concludes after the analysis that a sales of Toplofikatsiya at this point is not necessary. Then the money would have to come out of turnover of the company.

According to recent data, Toplofikatsiya Sofia had a debt of 150 million leva to Bulgargaz.