Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has amended the law on 2016 national budget, expanding expenses on defense and security by 7.1 billion UAH without the increase in the deficit of the national budget.
A total of 265 lawmakers backed bill No. 5217 at the session of the parliament. The government’s bill was registered in parliament on October 3.
According to the explanatory note to the document, extra outlays are foreseen for the Defense Ministry in the amount of 3.8 billion UAH, the National Police – 2.005 billion UAH (taking into account funds redistribution in the Interior Ministry system), the Administration of the State Border Service – 963.5 million UAH, the State Emergencies Service – 50 million UAH, the Main Intelligence Department of the Defense Ministry – 175 million UAH, Security Service – 128.5 million UAH, the Department of the State Guard – 51 million UAH and the State Special Transport Service – 5.4 million UAH.
It is also proposed to increase expenses on salaries of employees of the central executive power agencies, local administrations and foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine by 1.5 billion UAH.
The expenses of the Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Economy Ministry could be increased by 950 million UAH under the regional development fund program.
Some 420 million UAH would be added to finance the coal sector to avoid social outbreaks among coalminers and 90 million UAH will be sent to finance expenses linked to presenting Ukraine’s interests in foreign jurisdictions’ agencies.
The document proposes to allocate 50 million UAH to modernize and upgrade the material and technical base of state-run vocational educational schools and 35 million UAH to buy implants for children with hearing difficulties in the Kolomyichenko Otolaryngology Institute of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.
Some 15 million UAH would be foreseen from the national budget to Uman town to prepare for celebrating the 400th anniversary of the town and 8 million UAH would be provided to prepare Ukrainian sportsmen in sports events.
The expenses would be increased thanks to the increase of revenue of the general fund by 1.16 billion UAH via the transfer of revenue of the general fund of local budgets of towns in Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are temporarily beyond control of the Ukrainian government.
Other sources of increasing expenses will be saving of budget funds: 6.1 billion UAH from the implementation of debt liabilities, 2.4 billion UAH from servicing of the state debt and 400,000 UAH from reduction of other primary expenses.
According to the bill, general outlays of the national budget would be increased by 0.3%, to 676.51 billion UAH and revenue – by 0.2%, to 603.03 billion UAH. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)