REUTERS
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine intends to ensure a rise in pensions, along with the preparation of the pension reform in 2017, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman announced during an hour of questions to the government in the Verkhovna Rada.
"My task as prime minister and of our government for 2017 is to seek the adoption of decisions on raising pensions," he said.
According to the prime minister, Ukraine needs to implement a pension reform that will guarantee decent pensions for citizens.
Read alsoUkraine's social minister: Pension reform not finalized yet"We must build a new, efficient, and fair pension system that, according to our estimates, would lead to the elimination of the Pension Fund deficit until 2024. This means that the country's pension system will be stable, and most importantly, this reform will inevitably lead to an increase in Ukrainian citizens' pensions," Groysman emphasized.
As UNIAN reported, the implementation of pension reform is part of the reform program approved by the IMF for Ukraine in March 2015. The key goal of the reform should be the establishment of equitable pension payments with a simultaneous reduction in the budget deficit of the Pension Fund (PF), which currently exceeds UAH 140 billion. The mechanism for achieving these goals is now being debated.
At the same time, it does not imply a mandatory increase in the retirement age. According to the government estimates, it is possible to accomplish the task of reducing the PF deficit through drawing salaries out of the shadows and increasing the number of payers of the single social contribution, the key revenue source of the PF budget.
According to the government, the decision to raise the minimum wage to UAH 3,200 is being performed today in full both in the budgetary sphere and in the non-state sector of the economy.