Fairy-Tale Wages Did Not Work

Mr. Kuchma thinks that Hr 148 as minimum monthly pay and Hr 118.60 as poverty line do not correspond to Ukraine's actual economic possibilities. The bill's outspoken champion, Natalia Vitrenko, promptly countered by proposing a number of additional finance sources, such as renationalizing Utel, UMC, Air Ukraine International, taking Unified Energy System's debt of Hr 1.5 billion, and "recommending" that Oleksandr Volkov and Pavlo Lazarenko to return 80% of the money they had taken outside Ukraine.

Most legislators realized that the proposed measures were far out of the ordinary, but all, Rukh members and Communists included, were mostly interested to know what to tell their constituents. Ivan Sakhan, Minister of Labor and Social Protection, assured all that wages would be increased gradually, as much as possible. Only 210 Solons voted to override the President's veto, although his proposal was supported by only 82.