Chornobyl payment arrears grow by 20-40 million hryvnias a month

On April 5 Ukraine’s people’s deputies supported a decision to adjourn the parliamentary hearings on the fifteenth anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster slated for April 17 to April 25. Putting the question to a vote, First Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk noted that debate was being postponed to April 25 because Verkhovna Rada will be hearing the government’s report on April 17, UNIAN reports. Meanwhile, the All-Ukrainian Chornobyl Party For the People’s Welfare and Social Security the same day held a demonstration in front of the parliament and cabinet buildings. The demonstrators, claiming they are in extreme need of effective social security and state aid, demanded that the government be more active in the talks with donor states. Among the demands were appeals to the G7 countries to render selective assistance to those who suffered from the disaster and remained jobless after the nuclear power plant closure. There were demands to revise the budget provisions canceling some privileges to Chornobyl disaster victims, and to start paying off arrears. The demonstrators also demanded that medical institutions and health centers catering to Chornobyl victims be financed fully and on time, and that all Chornobyl-related organizations be equally financed from the state budget (which looks a bit strange in the case of a political party — Author).

Meanwhile, Yuri Andreyev, president of the Chornobyl Ukraine Union non-governmental organization, told The Day that “Chornobyl-related parties” are being formed with a clear intention to split the only legitimate Chornobyl-related movement, Chornobyl Ukraine Union. In his opinion, this is a specific political trick. Throughout last year, when the cabinet was mooting proposals to cut funding for state-sponsored Chornobyl programs, the All-Ukrainian Chornobyl Party said it supported the actions of the government and was prepared for constructive cooperation with it, while Chornobyl Ukraine Union was at that time organizing protest actions that drew thousands, unlike the one on April 5, Mr. Andreyev pointed out. He promised the union would hold a demonstration drawing thousands in Kyiv on April 21 to demand the indexation of Chornobyl pensions, which has not been done since 1996. According to Mr. Andreyev, the year 2000 alone saw a six-to-eight-times reduction in the number of those Chornobyl cleanup participants and invalids who visited health centers and a tenfold cut in the number of apartments built for those resettled from radiation contaminated areas and for disabled Chornobyl veterans. Moreover, the 2001 budget sets out a 20-25% reduction for Chornobyl- related programs. This means there will be no payments to those who participated in the Chornobyl cleanup and no funding of health centers for them. Moreover, direct social payments arrears to Chornobyl victims, now UAH 737 million, are rising by a monthly 20-40 million while, according to Mr. Andreyev, deductions from the Chornobyl Fund to the Pension Fund of Ukraine have increased threefold over the past year. In such conditions, the Chornobyl Ukraine Union insists that the government report on the real steps toward the improvement of Chornobyl victims’ living standards on April 25 during the parliamentary hearings.

It is also becoming clear that the ongoing politicization of the Chornobyl movement shows that diverse political forces are out to vie for Chornobyl votes. Incidentally, these people account for about 10% of the voters, with the total number of all categories of Chornobyl victims in Ukraine being 3.5 million.