Crown Agents intend to stop being so secretive and demonstrate a new approach in its relationship with the media. The Brits will start publishing news about their activities on the internet. In charge of the relations with the advisors will be the exclusively employed PR – consultant Zoia Argirova, furthermore the office of the company at “Pozitano” will be available for journalists. The apendices of the contract with the Ministry and the reports to Plamen Oresharski, however, will remain strictly confidential.

Mr. Smith, not long ago CA submitted the Inception Report to the Minister of Finance. What specific measures do you intend to take in order to increase the budget revenue?
- We sent our first analysis to Plamen Oresharski on 27.07.07. But as you noted, it is a preliminary report and it has to be approved by the Minister of Finance and the Managing Council created specifically for the CA programme in Bulgaria.

What will be the purposes of this council and will it have supervisory functions?
- Yes, representatives of the budget office and employees of the Ministry of finance will take part in this structure, controlling the implementation of our project. It is expected that the Council will meet at least once per month. For this purpose our team will submit regular reports to the Council with regard to the progress of the reforms. By this means Bulgaria will have available a really important instrument for evaluating our activity as consultants.

If I understood correctly, the contract you have recently signed with the Ministry is missing specific parameters for assessing the efficiency of the consultants?
- There are no specific parameters, but that doens`t mean that we are not going to be assessed. The CA experts will attend the Managing Council and will answer every question. Apart from the above mentioned reports submitted every 30 days, we will evaluate the progress of the project four times per year.

Anyway, how will CA affect the treasury`s takings?
- If you mean what will the increase be at the end of the year, then it is a really complicated question. The Minister hasn`t approved all the measures we have suggested yet. But even if they were approved, it would still be really difficult to forecast. Let not forget that our function is only to consult the Ministry of Finance. We are consultants in CA, not magicians. Hence I can`t tell exactly with how many % will the VAT and excise revenue increase.

The signing of your new contract was based on the sudden increase in numbers of VAT frauds after our accession into the EU. Isn`t this strange as GB is amongst the EU countries who lose the biggest amount of money because of the VAT frauds?
- This is true. But the CA team doesn’t include just British, but also Swedish, Danish and Slovenian experts. We intend to produce full assessment of the effect of the EU accession on the VAT revenue. Based on it we will be able to identify specific measures derived from the oldest EU members and “the ten”.

Is the team that you are going to be working with during the next two years ready?
- Pretty much, yes. Our agreement with the Ministry of Finance was signed at the end of June and we already had eight long-term consultants in Bulgaria at the beginning of July. Two more consultants will join them in the following few weeks. Apart from that, short-term experts will visit to help with the implementation of the programme.

Is it possible to have Bulgarians in you team?
-  We have been working closely with the NCA for almost 6 years. We are familiar with their management team. All our suggestions regarding the NCA will be consulted with the Director Asen Asenov and his deputies.We will similarly proceed with our relations with the NRA and ASR management.

You claim that the first two contracts were successful. Why is a third contract needed then?
- There were comments in the press saying that we had to prepare thoroughly the customs administration for the membership risks in the period 2001-2006. The reform is a continuous process. I dare say that our first two contracts were quite successful. Of course, what was planned can’t always be achieved 100% but the import incomes increase and the serious changes in the customs are obvious. If Minister Plamen Oresharski wasn’t satisfied with what we have achieved he wouldn’t have signed another contract. You are aware that he was among the most serious critics of the two contracts during the NMSII mandates but eventually got convinced in our effectiveness. 

Can we expect that new mobiles teams will be formed?
- The exact number of mobile teams isn’t determined in the actual contract with the Ministry of Finance. As you know, so far there have been fifteen mobile teams in the customs and our staff was part of them until last summer. However, they gradually withdrew and left them to his Bulgarian colleagues. We do not intend to carry out clearly operative work regarding the import post clearance. We have already advised Minister Plamen Oresharski to create mobile teams not only under the Customs Agency but under the NRA too. So it is highly likely for teams combatting VAT frauds to be established.

Lately, the issues about cigarettes, alcohol and fuel trafficking are heatedly discussed.  Isn’t the illegal traffic size bothering?     
- We discuss these problems with Assen Assenov on a regular basis. It is a fact that you can buy cigarettes without imposed excise duty almost everywhere across the country. However, this is a problem which the Customs Agency can’t resolve by itself. The same is relevant for the fuel import where the control over marking and bio-fuels levy is not satisfactory. Within the programme framework we are going to make analysis on the so called parallel excise duty goods market.

The international presence in the last few years hasn’t changed the public opinion that the customs authorities are the most corrupted civil servants. Isn’t that an indication of the failure of your mission? 
- You quite appropriately used the word “opinion”. I myself have been a customs officer for twenty years and I know that the people’s assessment is not always just. Besides the public opinion surveys do not rely on concrete data but more likely they are based on subjective evaluations. The Customs Agency management has taken immediate measures against bribes but immediate results shouldn’t be anticipated. After all, we are witnessing charges pressed against a number of senior customs officers which definitely is good news.

To what extent the claim that Crown Agents have liabilities to the budget in the form of tax is true?  
- In the beginning of the year we received an inspection statement from NRA concerning the rejection of some administrative statements. Crown Agents made an appeal and eventually it was reconsidered. We complied with the NRA decision and fulfilled our liabilities in accordance with the Bulgarian legislation.

David Smith is the manager of the current Crown Agents’ project for Bulgaria and he was also the manager of the two previous Bulgarian projects. He was born on January 18th 1963 in Great Britain. He has an excellent command of French and Spanish, and speaks German and Slovenian at conversational level. He has studied European Science. In his career he has worked in the British Customs for 15 years. He has worked as a consultant under different European programmes( CARDS, PHARE and others). He participated as an expert on Britain’s part in the development of common customs legislation within the Union. In the period between 1996 and 2000, he was sent to Slovenia where he participated in multipartite project for the facilitation of the customs administrations of the candidates for EU membership of the time. From 2004 to the end of 2006 he also worked under the World Bank project in Russia.