As the standards of living continue deterioration for Ukrainian citizens, the ever-dropping level of social protection for Chornobyl cleanup workers and persons affected by the accident cause even deeper concerns. In view of this, MP Serhiy Lovochkin sent an inquiry to Prime Minister Oleksii Honcharuk demanding the Cabinet to abide by the ruling of the Constitutional Court prescribing to restore the rights of those affected by the Chornobyl accident and introduce the needed amendments to the budget-2020.

The politician insists on further restoration of programs on providing cancer-stricken Chornobyl cleanup workers with housing and healthcare, on organization of uninterrupted provision of free medicines and resort treatment for them, on providing special vehicles for disabled Chornobyl veterans, and preservation of funding for healthcare network that serves this category’s needs.

Lovochkin says that Chornobyl cleanup workers and those affected by the accident suffer from continuous lowering of their living standards, which is mostly caused by cuts in budget funding of relevant social programs. This year, budget amount allocated for the social protection program for this category of the population (1.98bln hryvnia) was by 24 percent lower than that in 2013. Given inflation rate for 2019 and price growth between 2014 and 2018, it’s by 71 percent lower (or by 4.3 times in USD equivalent).

“We are especially concerned that the government does not abide by the ruling of the Constitution Court that declared illegal the Cabinet’s cutting of social benefits, which negatively affected almost 2 million Ukrainians. This is proved by the fact that the government didn’t provide for additional funding of the benefits for Chornobyl victims — the ones that had been restored by the Constitution Court — in its budget bill for the next year,” Lovochkin said.