Bulgaria's cabinet is planning to tighten the control over the certification of people with disabilities. Once a fake document is issued, nobody is able to cancel it, said Bulgaria's Deputy Premier for Demographic and Social Policies and Minister of Labor and Social Policy Ivailo Kalfin, who recently presented the new measures aimed at improving the pension system. The number of Bulgarians who get a disability pension is impressive. In 2014 over half of the retired Bulgarians received such pensions. The control mechanism is yet to be discussed with the Ministry of Healthcare. I agree with the plan of the authorities to tighten the current regime. However, the state must take care of the healthcare system, too, Velichka Kolcheva, who owns a small company and previously dealt with the Work Capability Assessment Commission, says.

  According to Ivailo Kalfin's proposal, the Work Capability Assessment Commissions should not only judge on the disability index, but also advise people on the types of jobs they could do. According to data of the Agency for People with Disabilities, only 10% of these people in active age are currently employed. In Mrs. Kolcheva's view, the employers do not hire people with disabilities for a reason and specifies: “There is a certain clause that protects the people with disabilities. If the company faces financial problems and has to make redundancies, the owner has to dismiss the highly-qualified staff first and then the people with disabilities”, Velichka Kolchava says.

Six years ago the life of the Bulgarian business woman took a sharp turn. She was diagnosed with cancer. “I went under a surgery and was certified as a disabled person”, Velichka Kolcheva recalls. She owns a fashion company. After she went through the most difficult battle in her life, she decided to turn her company into a specialized enterprise, where 30% of the employees are people with disabilities. Here is what else Mrs. Kolcheva told Radio Bulgaria:

 “The state is trying to help the businessmen with projects aimed at creating new jobs. It reimburses part of the social security payments. Some may think it is a small bonus, but for my small company it was very helpful. The authorities can not provide bigger help, because the state does not have enough money. In every poor country, the disabled people are as poor as the other people with financial difficulties. The authorities can not find a lot of money, but they can control the decisions of the Work Capability Assessment Commission better and support all disabled people, who start their private business, which has already happened.”

The specialized enterprises use certain alleviations during their application for public procurement orders as well. However, there are many corrupt cases, too:

 “There are many companies which hire disabled people, in order to participate in public procurement orders only. A company which recently joined the Agency for People with Disabilities and has doubtful history should not apply for public procurement orders.”

Mrs. Kolcheva's company works to order of foreign clients from England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and the USA. However, the company has not applied for public procurement orders yet. “We can not afford it, because we are a very small company. It is linked with a lot of expenditures and other factors, too. The Agency for People with Disabilities is the only state institution which really helps disabled Bulgarians", Mrs. Kolcheva contends. "In 2014 her company applied under a project for hardware and software equipment organized by the agency in question. The firm provided 10% of the total financing and managed to increase the number of the job positions.”

English version: Kostadin Atanasov