The MP and the chairman of the political council of the “Ukrainian Patriots Association – UKROP” party Taras Batenko has appealed to the Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman with an open letter, urging to provide necessary funding in the state budget 2017 for the sectors that are important for Ukraine’s development and citizens’ well-being.
In particular, the politician has stressed that it is necessary to secure funding for education and medicine from the state budget, while it is planned to charge local budgets with these expenses, as well as for specialized and vocational education, that is already financed at their expense. Otherwise educational process in many localities – especially in poor villages and towns – may be disrupted, the MP is convinced.
Taras Batenko also asks the Prime Minister to pay attention to imbalanced funding for some social services and law enforcement agencies.
“The factors, which may lead to raising social tension and people’s distrust of the authorities, are saving taxation of pensions for pensioners who work, suspension of legislative regulations on benefits in treatment and housing for the military. At the same time the draft budget for next year provides increased funding for the Prosecutor General’s Office by 41%, and the Interior Ministry – by 11%, while for housing of the military – defenders of Ukraine it is planned to spend only 0.6% more than last year,” says the chairman of the UKROP political council in the letter, published on the official website of the party.
In addition, the politician stresses that the draft budget threatens the future of state’s agribusiness industry. So Taras Batenko calls on to keep special VAT refund regime for farmers, to provide clear mechanism of allocating public funds for agriculture in order to avoid manual mode of funding and related corruption risks, and to allocate funds for the development of agricultural export, which brings every second export dollar to Ukraine. “The draft document should be thoroughly refined – only in this case it can be approved. We should adopt the budget for the benefit of the people,” believes the politician.
