UAH 4.4 Billion For the Army Is Not Enough

The projected UAH 4.4 billion allocated in funding for Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2002 is insufficient, Verkhovna Rada Committee for National Security and Defense Chairman Borys Andresiuk believes. Presenting his arguments in September 18 interview to journalists, he recalled that in 2001 the parliament appropriated UAH 2.8 billion for the Armed Forces budget. This time, the government wants the Defense Ministry to pay pensions to servicemen, setting aside UAH 1.3 billion for this purpose, and this is to be included in the UAH 4.4 billion total funding for the military. Thus, there is no real growth of the defense budget, he said. The committee is especially concerned over the program of Armed Forces reform, with committee members proposing the government single out funding earmarked for reforms as a separate budget item, reports Interfax-Ukraine. The government has agreed, suggesting, however, allocating UAH 60 million from a special fund to be formed from Defense Ministry’s receipts from the sales of obsolete weaponry. The government wants to use another UAH 100 million from the same fund to purchase new armaments. The government has set the fund at UAH 600 million. “Considering that the equipment and weaponry to be sold are obsolete, the Defense Ministry and the state-run Spetseksport arms seller will not be able to cope with the UAH 600 million target,” Deputy Andresiuk believes. In other words, if the program to raise fund revenues proves to be unrealistic, so will be the program to reform the Armed Forces.