REUTERS
The Ukrainian government could have taken a number of steps within the five years that would have allowed it to transfer the funds to the national budget for servicing foreign debt.
Executive Director of Centre for Economic Strategy (CES) Hlib Vyshlinsky says Ukraine has lost at least US$70 billion in the past five years over shadow schemes due to the lack of the rule of law in the country.
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"We've estimated losses and missed opportunities for Ukraine over the past five years. This is $70 billion, including one-time losses or a shortfall of funds, as well as a five-year total of lost budget receipts from relevant areas," he said at a press conference on December 4, presenting his organization's research.
The Ukrainian government could have taken a number of steps within the five years that would have allowed it to transfer the funds to the national budget for servicing foreign debt at least, he said.
"Some $70 billion is a large amount, which exceeds the entire Ukrainian foreign debt. In fact, this is a good base for comparison. We can actually say that the problem that we face every year – the servicing of foreign debt – could be solved if the biggest schemes we researched were eliminated," he said.
CES experts listed large-scale schemes that cause substantial losses of budget revenue: the privatization process, the moratorium on farmland sale, repayment of bad loans, shadow employment, illegal gambling, mining of amber, and deforestation. Ukraine's losses are also recorded in the sphere of foreign economic activity (discrepancy between the volumes and value of imports and exports; as a result, there are losses from excise taxes and duties). Infrastructure facilities' condition is deteriorating as well.
As UNIAN reported earlier, experts estimated Ukraine's annual budget losses from shadow employment at about $6 billion. If the rule of law in Ukraine was the same as in Poland, the potential revenue from sale of 53 large-scale enterprises approved by the government last year for privatization would be $4.2 billion up from the funds which would be earned from the sale of the assets in Ukraine.