REUTERS
A system of child support recovery could be applied to other types of debt, while this would require a "difficult political decision."
The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine in 2019 collected UAH 6.5 billion in child support and UAH 500 million in wage arrears, Minister Denys Malyuska says.
"Alimony is now being recovered most effectively in the system of enforcement proceedings," Malyuska told RBC-Ukraine.
The minister recognized that the special program and legislative changes streamlining the procedure had been introduced by the previous government.
"That was enough to introduce a normal mechanism for child support payments," said Malyuska.
"There is no moratorium, so there is an effective system of influence on debtors, which works very well," the minister continued, also noting that the collectors would really like to see the same system applied to other debtors.
"But this would already require a difficult political decision," Malyuska said.
Regarding wage arrears, the minister said that it is more difficult for collectors to address the issue, so a significantly lower amount was recovered.
"We have recovered about half a billion hryvnias in wage arrears in 2019. Our work is to a large extent hindered by the fact that many debtors here are in the public sector – utility companies; enterprises that are members of various programs, and therefore it is not always possible to recover funds. Of course, there are also privately-owned firms that owe their employees. But, mainly, it's utility companies that have chronic debts," Malyuska said.