The income of the state budget’s general fund added up to 178.2bln hryvnia over the first three months of 2019, which is by 8.9 percent, or 16bln hryvnia less than planned for the period. This was stated by OPPOSITION PLATFORM — FOR LIFE MP Serhiy Lovochkin in a commentary regarding the Q1 budget execution. The MP said the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine had announced increased risks of budget execution failure in 2019.

“The budget execution failed in the first quarter. It lacks almost 9 percent of income. This creates aggravated risks of the entire budget failure as of 2019, which risks have been voiced by the Accounting Chamber. The longer the old regime keeps the power, the higher the possibility that Ukrainian citizens will not see even the smallest increase in salaries as stipulated in the budget bill,” Lovochkin said.

The politician announced that the state budget general fund’s expenditures fell short of their Q1 target by 9 percent, or 21.1bln hryvnia. Several dozen budget programs have been barely funded by half of the planned amount. This results in failure of several social support programs, centralized medicine procurement, economy support, regional development, etc.

All of this is happening on the backdrop of lower economy growth. According to the Ministry of Economic Development’s estimates, the real GDP growth rate slowed down to 2.2 percent in Q1 (compared to 3.3 percent in Q1 2018 and the entire year 2018). Several sectors of the economy have been demonstrating some negative dynamics, including industrial manufacturing (minus 0.9 percent in Q1) and wholesale trade (minus 5.5 percent).

“There is no sense in expecting any doings on stimulation of economic growth from those who have been destroying the industrial manufacturing over the past five years. All we need is that these ‘managers’ leave as soon as possible. The government should be comprised of professionals experienced in economy revitalization,” Lovochkin summed up.