First Deputy Minister of Economy Pavel Kukhta (held the position from September 2019 to April 2020) reported that for the first time in at least ten years, the budget of Ukraine had a catastrophic situation. There is nothing to cover financial obligations in the amount of about UAH 10 billion.
The ex-official wrote about this on Facebook.
Kukhta named three troubling circumstances. First, according to operational data of the Treasury, the unpaid financial obligations as of today amount to 9,4 billion, of which 3 billion are for protected expenses. This is the maximum since the beginning of the year and an increase of 2 billion compared to the previous week.
Secondly, according to people from the system, since November 9, the treasury has been working in file cabinet mode: employees add up receipts until nightfall, in the morning they form a pool of expenses that will be financed, and everything else is postponed. In the recent history of Ukraine, in the middle of November, this has not happened for at least ten years, the author of the post noted.
Thirdly, the weekend lockdown and the inevitable looming full lockdown increase the need for budget expenditures. The simplest support program - payment of UAH 5000 minimum salary to all employees in the affected areas of the service sector (about 4 million people) - costs 20 billion per month. This money is simply not available now.
Kukhta offers the only, in his opinion, normal way out of the situation - a quick resumption of cooperation with the IMF, which will open access to borrowing to finance expenses." This means adopting at least a slightly adequate budget for 2021 - there are already talks about the acceptability of a deficit at level 5,3 .XNUMX% of GDP... In addition to the budget, it is necessary to launch judicial reform and restore anti-corruption legislation. Of course, all this requires effort, but compared to the times when the IMF demanded an increase in tariffs or the retirement age, these are clearly not difficult conditions", - summarizes a former employee of the ministry.
