Oleksandr Shlapak, first deputy head of President Victor Yushchenko’s secretariat, held a press briefing on Tuesday, according to the President`s press-office.
Shlapak said Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s government had approved next year’s draft budget resolution today and reprimanded it for failing to heed some of Yushchenko’s recommendations, according to the President`s press-office.
Shlapak said the government’s macroeconomic projections were inaccurate. “We are convinced that the figure 679 which can be seen in the government’s documents is low and can confidently say that the country’s nominal GDP will be at least [UAH] 700 billion by the end of the year,” he said and added that the government was refusing to compromise on the issue.
Shlapak said only seven of Yushchenko’s nine social initiatives were included “fully or partly” in the resolution. He said the government suggested introducing a single salary scale on November 1, 2008, which means Ukraine’s citizens will be paid higher salaries only at the end of the year. The president, however, insists that their salaries should be raised on January 1, he added. The government has also rejected Yushchenko’s plan to reform the pension system and double its benefits for those children who live in families of three or more children. The government will pay more to orphans studying at universities but has virtually forgotten those parentless teenagers who study at training schools, he said. “This approach is not very clear, as we think there is no difference between such orphans.”
He also said Ukraine’s local communities had no right to distribute budget funds but added that the government “has promised to consider and resolve this issue next time.”
Shlapak said President Yushchenko and his advisors were going to continue discussing the 2008 budget with Ukraine’s new parliament and government.
