The OPPOSITION BLOC drafted amendments to the state budget and will register it in the parliament on Friday. Serhiy Lovochkin, an Opposition Bloc leader said this according to the party press service. Thus, according to him, the new draft is a budget of development, which suggests to spend UAH 11.1 billion on education and health care, 5.8 billion on social assistance to vulnerable people, 5 billion more to raise housing subsidies as well a total of 62 billion UAH for the indexation of Ukrainians’ incomes.

“Unlike the adopted ‘budget of extinction,’ the opposition proposes a budget of development. Additional spending in the amount of 84 billion hryvnias will be allocated on budget items that will allow the economy to resume growth and boost domestic market development. For the first time in the last two years we plan to allocate 10 billion to stimulate the economic growth and regional development. For the first time in the last two years our experts envisioned not nominal, but a real increase in social standards. In result of two indexations in 2016 the minimum wage should reach UAH 1958, the minimum pension - UAH 1526. We are convinced that the growth of people’s incomes can give impetus to the domestic market development,” Serhiy Lovochkin said.

According to him, the draft amendments to the budget prepared by the OPPOSITION BLOC include an increase in social assistance to needy families, families with children and people with disabilities by UAH 5.8 billion, spending on education will increase by UAH 4.4 billion, health care will also receive 6.7 billion UAH more. Almost all of these funds will be transferred as regional subsidies.

“But a key proposal is to increase the amount allocated for development programs. We suggest to triple the support for national and regional investment projects - from 485 million to 1.5 billion UAH, the budget of the Regional Development Fund will be increased from 500 million to 3.5 billion UAH. Thus, the national and regional development projects will receive 5 billion hryvnias. On top of this subventions to local budgets for social and economic development will also be increased by 535 million - up to UAH 2.475 billion,” Lovochkin said.

He also said that the draft budget developed by the OPPOSITION BLOC increased the funding for the development of mineral deposits and growth of reserves three-fold (from 100 to 300 million hryvnias), increased the support of the agriculture sector through more affordable loans by 20%, increased the support for livestock breeding four-fold.

Besides, the new draft budget envisages a recovery program for the Donbas infrastructure, for which some UAH 500 million is allocated. The draft budget also re-introduces a subvention to local budgets for the purchase of Ukrainian trolley buses and trams for the total amount of UAH 100 million. “All of these items have one common denominator - they focus on the future. A budget of development will open up Ukraine’s prospects,” the politician said.

“By suggesting to increase budgetary spending by 84 billion hryvnias, the OPPOSITION BLOC also proposes to increase the revenues by the same amount. We offer a fair version of the budget, which would not have understated figures like the average exchange rate of 24 hryvnias to the dollar or the inflation at 12%. Such methods allowed the Cabinet to include underestimated forecasts in the 2015 budget, so at the end of the year they could boast of tens of billions of above-target performance. The OPPOSITION BLOC suggests to use honest calculation indicators: the exchange rate is already above 24 hryvnias to the dollar, and the vast majority of financial analysts predict an average annual rate of 30. According to our experts, the 2016 inflation will reach 28.5%, and not 12%, so the real performance of revenues from taxes and duties will be higher by more than 80 billion,” Lovochkin explained.

In addition, according to the policy maker, the OPPOSITION BLOC proposes to cut other expenditure items in the current budget by 14 billion UAH. Some of the items that would fall under the sequestration include spending on the state apparatus, including expenditures on the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Presidential Administration.

“The increase in revenues and expenditures has been balanced in the draft budget proposed by the opposition, which will, among other things, reduce the budget deficit from 3.70% to 3.48% of GDP. This figure is fully consistent with Ukraine’s commitments and will not be an obstacle to cooperation with international financial institutions,” Serhiy Lovochkin concluded.