Spending on pension payments to IDPs in Ukraine declines by 3.6% in 2017

Spending on pension payments paid to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine as of January 1, 2018 declined by 3.6% from January 1, 2017, to UAH 11.1 billion (US$411 million).

From August 2014 to December 2017 inclusively, UAH 56.9 billion ($2.1 billion) was paid to pensioners who moved from the areas that are not controlled by the Ukrainian government, the Pension Fund of Ukraine (PFU) reported.

Read alsoAverage pension in Ukraine grows 35.7% in 2017At the same time, the PFU does not have exact data on the number of pensioners who live in the uncontrolled territory, as well as of those who died or moved to other countries.

"During 2017, the number of recipients of pension payments, namely internally displaced persons, stabilized. As of January 1, 2017, pensions were paid to 548,900 such pensioners, whereas their number was 516,100 people as of January 1, 2018," the report said.

According to the PFU, the period of issuing electronic pension certificates to internally displaced persons was extended in 2017. A total of 411,000 certificates had been issued as of January 1, 2018.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Pension Fund disbursed UAH 286.6 billion ($10.6 billion) in benefits to 11.7 million retirees in 2017.