The Verkhovna Rada at night, without reading it, urgently approved the 2015 budget so that the deputies had time for charters
Kyiv, December 29 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Ryabov) – Last night the Verkhovna Rada urgently approved the 2015 state budget. The final vote took place after four in the morning, it was preceded by many hours of behind-the-scenes negotiations between factions on the distribution of funds in the main budget of the country.
It seems that a new scandal awaits Ukraine - the adopted budget was simply “pushed through” by the country’s top leadership, deputies were forced to press buttons, and no one really knows what exactly is written in the document.
“In the 23 years of Ukraine’s independence, this has never happened before when deputies were not given the final text of the budget, and, contrary to the law, they did not consider them at a meeting of the budget committee,” lawyer Yuriy Karmazin comments on the situation.
Parliamentarians admit that many did not know what exactly was approved at the night meeting. “Today we sat in the Verkhovna Rada until the “victory”, since some deputies could not cancel their charters for the New Year celebration,” said deputy Vladimir Parasyuk.
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Deputy Victoria Voitsitskaya confirms that the leadership convinced the parliamentarians of the need to vote at night, since the next morning many would leave for vacation, and there would not be enough votes in the hall.
Voitsitskaya believes that in the end the deputies voted for a “pig in a poke” at night. “All the numbers could have been recalculated in a day. And voting for something imaginary is unacceptable to me. The cost of air tickets exceeded the cost of the state budget,” she admitted.
The process of adopting the 2015 budget is already being compared to the pushing through of the scandalous laws of January 16 under Viktor Yanukovych. It is possible that the outcome of the all-night meeting of the Rada will also lead to a popular revolt, because the new budget involves an increase in taxes and a reduction in social benefits.
“In the dead of night, at four in the morning, the voices of the Popular Front, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and part of Mutual Aid simulated the adoption of the budget by pressing buttons. The falsity of this action is that the budget does not exist - it will only now be written by the government. The fact is that the draft budget that was distributed a few days ago is no longer relevant. Almost a dozen laws adopted the day before radically changed the tax system and the system of distribution of budget funds - and, therefore, both the revenue and expenditure side of the budget must be radically replanned in accordance with the new conditions.
There is no new budget, but the majority voted pretending there was a budget. Thus, the majority destroyed itself as parliamentarians. These people refused to participate in government and neglected the responsibility of the legislative branch. The budget will be written in the Cabinet of Ministers. The main financial document will now be formed by those people to whom the people have not delegated the right to do so.
The people were misled: the people were asked to vote for those who make decisions - but the elected officials refused to make decisions after the elections, surrendering their powers to factional leaders and their partners in the government,” deputy Igor Lutsenko reported details of the night voting.