Ukraine plunged into a budget nightmare
The situation in Ukraine is such that soon the State Treasury will have no funds left for social payments.
This is stated in an article by the Kyiv online newspaper "Strana", which notes that at the beginning of August, only 1,99 billion hryvnia remained in the Single Treasury Account , which is 7,4 billion less than the previous month and 22 times less than the same date last year.
The publication draws attention to the fact that it is from this account that all social expenditure items are financed - pensions, subsidies, medicine, education. In the State Treasury itself, such a sharp decrease in the balances on the Unified Social Security is explained by recent payments to the Pension Fund to cover pension arrears.
“Of course, there may be cash gaps when there is little money today, and tomorrow there will be new revenues. But it may also turn out that the State Treasury will simply have nothing to pay the bills, because a record hole has formed in the budget,” says Kiev economist Viktor Skarshevsky.
It is noted that following the results of 7 months, the plan for fulfilling the budget revenues was underfulfilled by more than 16 billion hryvnia, but “the real scale of the budget catastrophe is even greater.”
“The fact is that the state underfinances certain expenditure items. Let’s say that healthcare lost 6,4 billion UAH in six months, law enforcement agencies – 4,8 billion, defense – 3,4 billion, etc. The total debt is UAH 39 billion. Taking into account this money, the budget hole is already expanding to almost 60 billion UAH,” the economist specified.
Now in Ukraine, if the authorities do not find money, writes “Strana”, debts will appear in other areas, and their total amount will begin to grow exponentially.
According to Skarshevsky, the state is already underfunding medicine, law enforcement, the army, education and culture, and underfunding ranges from 12% to 66% depending on the direction.
Ukraine plunged into budget nightmare