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The government proposes to reduce budget revenues by UAH 100 billion (US$3.6 billion).
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved and submitted for the Verkhovna Rada consideration draft amendments to the state budget for 2020.
The corresponding bill was registered on Parliament website late on Sunday, March 29 (No.3279), while its text is yet to be made public.
Oleksiy Honcharenko via a Telegram channel reported that the project proposed to reduce budget revenues by UAH 100 billion (US$3.6 billion), increase costs by the same amount, and, accordingly, increase the deficit by UAH 200 billion ($7.2 billion), or up to 6% of GDP.
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"The main message of the budget changes is setting up a stabilization fund, which should help the government in combating the coronavirus epidemic. The stabilization fund should amount to UAH 99 billion ($3.57billion) and, according to their idea, the government will be able to use it during quarantine and for another month after it's over," the deputy wrote.
The project also envisages an increase in state borrowings by UAH 277.5 billion ($10 billion), of which UAH 146.5 billion ($5.28 billion) is internal, which may be in a form of a concealed issue.
Honcharenko also said that the project reduced privatization revenues from the target UAH 12 billion ($390 million) to UAH 0.5 billion ($16 million).
The MP claims that financing the Pension Fund deficit is proposed to be increased by more than UAH 19 billion ($618 million), up to UAH 192 billion ($6.2 billion).
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At the same time, it is proposed to increase expenses of the Ministry of Health by only UAH 472 million ($15 million).
As UNIAN reported earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers approved an updated macroeconomic forecast for the current year, according to which the GDP is expected to fall by 3.9%, inflation – to accelerate to 8.7%, and the average annual hryvnia exchange rate – to rise to UAH 29.5 to the U.S. dollar.