Back wages and arrears on social payments still exist
People at the Ministries of Finance, Agrarian Policy, Labor and Social Policy are alarmed by the current situation with all kinds of arrears on payments in the regions. Enhancing state control over observance of the labor laws (in the course of inspections criminal proceedings have been initiated against 15,000 officials at 19,600 enterprises; evidence incriminating 2331 managers has been forwarded to law enforcement authorities) apparently does not produce the desired effect. Since the start of the year such arrears have been reduced by a mere 13% (UAH 368 million), the remaining debts amounting to UAH 2.4 billion by October, according to the State Statistics Committee. In the past month alone, the arrears have increased by UAH 4.1 billion, totaling UAH 6.9 billion as of November 1, says Oleksandr Yaremenko, deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Finance, adding that evening-up subsidies have been transferred to all regions almost in full measure, the average monthly debt-repayment rate lowering 5 times throughout Ukraine. Health care, culture, education, and agriculture are the arrears leaders. Opposite results were expected in the agrarian sector, but in the last months the debts have been decreased only by UAH 21 million (compared to UAH 110 million in October 2001). The Ministry of Agrarian Policy predicts that the arrears will total UAH 200 million by the end of the year, with half the debts payable to collective agricultural enterprises “reorganized” without appointing legal successors or still to be liquidated. The situation with social payments is as disheartening, the arrears in 12 regions totaling some UAH 75 million.
An intercom conference of the heads of these ministries with those in charge of the regions at issue could be described as constructive with a lot of reservations. For administrators from Lviv, Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Vinnytsia oblasts complained of inadequate budget financing of separate industries, mildly reminding that there ought to be joint responsibility for the situation that has developed. Kyiv replied that they would take this into consideration (e.g., by submitting relevant proposals to the cabinet, authors of the future budget, etc.) and proceeded to reproach those in charge of the regions for some unjustifiable debts. In a word, the conference was held according to the old Soviet tradition: a lot of verbiage using bureaucratic clichОs, ending with reaching an “understanding” based on mutual empty promises to “correct the situation in the nearest future.”
By and large the participants expressed confidence that the debts will be repaid by the start of the next year, naturally barring bad debts, meaning the possibility of payments only in the course of bankruptcy proceedings. Despite the said agrarian forecasts for the end of the year, the ministers seemed determined to concentrate on the agrarian sector — rather, on the managers of enterprises that “habitually” hold back wages due the collective farmers. One of the ministers got carried away, saying, “Today, much as we’d like to, we mustn’t force the collective farmers to work as was practiced during Soviet times.”
