Cabinet okays bill on pension reform, PM says $1.6 bln needed

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has approved a bill on pension reform and sent it to the National Reform Council under the President of Ukraine.

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A relevant decision was taken by the government at a meeting on Wednesday.

"Our main task is to create such a pension system so that people are paid a decent pension. This can be done by taking certain steps. The pension should not be a kind of charity – there should decent payment for decent work," Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said at the Cabinet meeting.

Read alsoFinance Minister Danyliuk: No new IMF tranche without pension reformIn his words, the pension reform will from January 1, 2018, cancel pensions on special terms, including time in service for all civil servants, except for the military and some groups of workers with heavy and harmful labor conditions.

Groysman estimates that the implementation of the pension reform in 2017 and 2018 will require US$1.59 billion in total.

"Out of the UAH 12 billion [US$454 million], we have already sent over UAH 7.9 billion to the Pension Fund. We expect at least UAH 4 billion more will be transferred to the Pension Fund by the end of the year. This means we've got money for the period from October 1. In 2018, it will cost UAH 30 billion [$1.135 billion] – an additional sum of UAH 30 billion that we will pay to Ukrainian retirees," he said.

The government plans to get the required sum by expanding the tax base due to a reduction in single social security tax.

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