Bulgarian PM nominates deputy finance minister Ananiev to take over as health minister
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov has tabled in Parliament a proposal for the appointment of Kiril Ananiev, a deputy finance minister, as the new health minister to succeed Nikolai Petrov who resigned on October 30 amid controversy.
The nomination of Ananiev, who has no medical training, will be voted on by the National Assembly on November 10.
Petrov resigned following media reports about him having signed, while head of the Military Medical Academy, contracts worth 1.6 million leva (about 800 000 euro) with a company owned by a man with whom Petrov’s daughter had a child.
The matter was raised in an official audit report but prosecutors said that they found no wrongdoing to justify lodging criminal proceedings.
Ananiev has a long career with Bulgaria’s Ministry of Finance, which he joined in 1980 after graduating in finance and credit from what is now called the University of National and World Economy.
He specialised at the UNWE in the financing of social and cultural spending and in Chicago in health care reform.
Ananiev held various posts until becoming Head of State Expenditure Directorate and Deputy Minister of Finance for three consecutive governments in the period 1998-2009.
He was also a Financial Policy Secretary for the administration of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria (2009-2011) and a counsellor to the Political Office of the Prime Minister (2013-2014).
He held the post of Deputy Minister of Finance from August 2014 to January 2017, and from January 27 to May 3 2017, was Finance Minister in the Gerdzhikov caretaker government.