The Verkhovna Rada and the Government of Ukraine continue their work in the conditions of war. Recently, parliamentarians stripped the mandates of two of their colleagues and approved the country's budget for 2023. The government changed the head of the state corporation Naftogaz of Ukraine, the "grain agreement" continued its work - politician, doctor of technical sciences, professor Mykhailo Pozhivanov, who heads the Odesa city organization of the party VO "Batkivshchyna", commented on these important issues for the ElitExpert publication.
Since the beginning of the war, the incomes of citizens and the budget have decreased significantly, and Ukraine lives practically at the expense of the help of international partners. Recently, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the budget for 2023, what does it consist of and how will it be filled?
As far as I understand, the deficit of the adopted budget of Ukraine for 2023 is more than 38 billion dollars at today's exchange rate, and this deficit affects almost the entire social sector. Since external financing of the war and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is prohibited, the IMF money and the aid we receive from partner countries cannot go to these budget items. Accordingly, almost all budget funds for the next year, which will come from taxes and fees, will be directed to finance the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. At the same time, the financing of the remaining expenditure items, primarily social, will have to be covered by external aid. Therefore, it is very difficult to talk about the reality of this budget.
Today, the main problem is that in connection with attacks on the country's energy structure and as a result - planned blackouts, office centers and industrial enterprises cannot work in normal mode. They are forced to purchase backup power sources and generators to be able to operate stably, and these are additional costs that the state does not compensate. In addition, for all businesses, there remains another cost item that local community and city councils can waive, but do not, which is land and property tax, which must be paid even if the business does not operate at all.
Unfortunately, neither the government, nor the Verkhovna Rada, nor the local self-government bodies that set these taxes have even considered these issues. Although it was possible to make changes to the laws, and for the period of hostilities either to reduce or postpone the payment of taxes on land and real estate and to support business.
Having extensive work experience in the economy and business, I really understand who and for what pays to the budget. If the company has funds and needs employees, it pays wages and the corresponding taxes. People have jobs, and the state has to fill the budget. If there is no profit and turnover in the enterprise - there is no value added tax. But land and real estate tax must be paid in any case. In my opinion, this approach is completely wrong, because it kills all small and medium-sized businesses. The authorities must pay attention to such issues and take steps towards entrepreneurs.
As for the articles of financing of education, culture and sports, it is planned according to the residual principle. During the Second World War, when Winston Churchill was also asked to cut spending and direct all the money to the army, he said "why are we fighting" if we don't fund our education, culture and sports.
As the founder of an exhibition gallery, I can say that today it is quite difficult to exist only at the expense of private sponsorship. We are trying our best to keep our gallery operating, realizing that there is practically no revenue. Even logistics for the delivery of paintings for exhibitions, salaries for security and gallery employees - all this is paid from personal savings. But we understand that we still need to work, because culture is an element of normal life for people. Unfortunately, there are no more than four or five private galleries in all of Kyiv that continue to work today.
In general, we considered only a few problematic aspects of the budget for next year, which is why the "Fatherland" faction in the Verkhovna Rada did not vote for it in vain. But it was accepted because there are enough collaborators among the People's Deputies who, fearing for their future political fate, are ready to support any proposals submitted to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration by the authorities, and there are no problems with votes there.
But the situation is not only in the Verkhovna Rada, when deputies from banned parties, primarily from OPZZH, vote for power issues. A similar situation occurs in the regions - in regional councils, district and communities of all levels. As I said earlier, in my opinion, all MPs from banned parties should be stripped of their mandates in the near future and banned from running for office for at least 5-10 years.
They can work, engage in business, but their path to the authorities must be closed. Because today we observe in many regions of Ukraine how deputies from banned parties have almost completely fallen under the power and vote for everything it needs. And the government itself should be afraid of such things, because all these deputies were elected with the money of Medvedchuk, Lyovochkin, Boyk, Stolar and their ilk, and it is necessary to realistically understand that they will turn around at any moment and do what is needed by completely different people. and maybe the enemy.
Recently, the Verkhovna Rada revoked the citizenship and mandate of People's Deputy Vadym Rabinovych from OPZJ and Igor Vasylkovskyi from the Servants of the People party. Why were such measures taken only against these people's deputies, or are these demonstrative "executions" for the people.
Let's start with the reasons for the deprivation of mandates and citizenship - this is the presence of a second passport, and dual citizenship is prohibited in our country, and the Constitution does not provide for anything else. But the interpretation of laws and responsibility has a tendency of double standards, to put it mildly. I will not even touch on the issue of those who had a second Russian citizenship, and there are hundreds of thousands of such people in our country.
Therefore, the question here is not so much about these people's deputies, but about the fact that Ukrainians have been turning a blind eye to the existence of a second citizenship for a long time. This especially applies to the border regions of Ukraine, where more than one hundred thousand residents have Hungarian citizenship - this is mainly the Transcarpathian region. Residents of Chernivtsi, part of Vinnytsia and part of Odesa regions have Romanian citizenship. If we talk about the Volyn, Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, a certain part of their population has Polish citizenship and has not renounced Ukrainian citizenship either.
Therefore, in the case of Rabinovych and Vasylkovsky, certain people are elected and the legal mechanism begins to work. Of course, today this issue is already ripe to be put firmly at all levels of government. These two people left and have not been on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the war, they did not participate in the work of the parliament as people's deputies, this caused unwanted questions at any press conference, and apparently they decided to get rid of them in this way.
Previously, at least a dozen names from the current parliament were mentioned, who allegedly have a second citizenship, but if they are in the country and continue to work in the Verkhovna Rada, then, as we can see, such questions are not raised about them.
The same applies to state authorities and local governments, where we really understand that such cases also exist. There have been many publications of passports of other states regarding mayors, local council members and judges, but no one except the mass media raises these issues. If today, for example, you check any head of the Transcarpathian region, most of them or their family members have Hungarian passports.
When we travel for humanitarian aid, and this is mainly through the border with Hungary, we usually see how people at our border show a Ukrainian foreign passport, and at the Hungarian customs they already show their passport. This is just what I see myself, working in the humanitarian direction. And if we take it as a whole, then, in my opinion, more than a million citizens in our country have a second passport. And here it is necessary either to deprive everyone of Ukrainian citizenship, or to allow everyone dual citizenship. In the same Austria, it is impossible to get citizenship until you give up what you already have.
Our state will have to solve this issue in any case. In my opinion, dual citizenship should be allowed, but if we are talking about dual citizenship with an aggressor country, then in this case some restrictive measures can be taken.
Why, for example, did the majority of Ukrainians get a Hungarian passport, because it allowed them to enter, live and work on the territory of Hungary legally. Even when visa-free appeared, interest in it did not disappear, since visa-free work permits are not granted. And for those who want to work, the relevance of another passport remains. In addition, the issue of dual citizenship and double taxation is important for the economy. For Ukraine, by and large, it would be appropriate to allow dual citizenship, since transfers of funds from our employees to their families were an important part of the country's currency balance and this helped the authorities economically.
As for the fear that there will be a "brain drain" and the best will leave the country, you definitely won't be able to keep them with a passport. If a person is in demand as a specialist, he will go and work anywhere.
In general, if we look at the general world trend on this issue, more and more countries, where dual citizenship was prohibited, are changing their legislation and allowing to have a second passport. This is a person's freedom of choice and freedom of movement.
Recently, the head of Naftogaz Ukrainy JSC, Yury Vitrenko, resigned at his own request, and the government has already appointed Oleksiy Chernyshov, who previously held the position of Minister of Community and Territorial Development, in his place. What are the reasons for such changes on the eve of the heating season and how do you assess the efficiency of Naftogaz?
In my opinion, the very appointment of Yury Vitrenka as the head of Naftogaz of Ukraine was, to put it mildly, wrong. We saw the entire "professional path" of Mr. Kobolev and Vitrenko, even when they worked together at Naftogaz and their great "achievements".
In addition, information about huge abuses at Naftogaz of Ukraine amounting to hundreds of billions of hryvnias, which was presented by the head of the temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksiy Kucherenko, was recently made public. The commission was created to audit the work of the state corporation and its management, and recently submitted its first reports, which are simply shocking.
Unfortunately, the government constantly ignored embezzlement, multimillion-dollar bonuses to the management and supervisory board of Naftogaz, despite their unprofitable performance. Constant failure of the budget to receive huge funds from the company. Therefore, probably now, after the publication of the first results of the work of the Verkhovna Rada TSC, which show abuses of over 200 billion hryvnias, the government is no longer able to answer the questions that arise for everyone, and has gone to replace the management of Naftogaz.
As for the new chairman of the state-owned company, Mr. Chernyshov, God forbid that when he became the head of Naftogaz, he would not continue the work of his predecessors by simply changing people at the top.
As for the company itself and its efficiency, by and large the structure of OJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine has turned into an intermediary one, since those engaged in transportation - Ukrtransgaz, and gas production - Ukrgazvydobuvannya, work separately and are independent companies. Therefore, why is there a need for this intermediary structure, which simply takes volumes of gas and tries to redistribute it throughout the country, setting tariffs and receiving excess profits - it is difficult for me to say. All the more so when the profits received are not transferred to the country's budget, and since NJSC "Naftogaz of Ukraine" is a state-owned company, it is obliged to do so.
"Ukrgazvydobuvannya" and "Ukrtransgaz" extract and transport our gas completely independently, and the distribution by regions may not be in the same financial volume and monopoly that Naftogaz took upon itself. This is a multi-billion-dollar structure that has no benefit whatsoever.
The "Grain Agreement" was continued, although Russia sometimes withdrew from it and then returned. Turkey plays a major role in all negotiation processes on the "grain corridor". Is this the result of the strengthening of Turkey on the continent and how logical is it to acquire such influence?
A certain tough position of Turkey on various issues is definitely present. They managed to defend their interests in the Azerbaijani-Armenian and Syrian conflicts. Their position regarding the Crimean Tatars was heard by Russia, which is very important for Turkey.
In general, they have the opportunity to talk in the world as equals. For what reasons - this is the mentality of the former Ottoman and Russian empires, which at one time fought, at another - made friends against the West, which prevails today - it is difficult to say.
In addition, Turkey is trying to influence the entire Arab world, playing an important geopolitical role in this region. One of its main advantages is the transport component, because today the Nord Streams are not working, the supply of gas through Ukraine is quite limited, and that is why the Turkish Stream and the gas hub in Turkey are interesting for both Russia and Europe. The introduction of price restrictions on Russian gas and oil may be adopted in the near future, therefore the importance of the Turkish hub is increasing, because it will no longer be Russian gas, but rather Turkish gas, which is not subject to sanctions.
In addition, Turkey has always been a market country that constantly traded and did not refuse anything at all times. The same is the case with the grain corridor, this is Turkey's participation in logistics and support, and today the costs of transshipment of grain are huge, the market has grown, and we really understand that Turkish companies are primarily profiting from this. We don't know how this profit is shared among other market participants, with Putin himself - but we understand that he is one of the richest people in the world, who has always earned - oil, gas, weapons - these are all things that brought him personally billions. Don't forget about this either.
And finally, half of Turkey's ports and most of the hotel infrastructure belong to big Russian business. Therefore, all these points are clear, and I think that those who control the Federal Reserve System of the United States and can track any accounts in dollars, perfectly understand the role in this of Turkey, which plays for itself and its interests.
