Despite the agenda of the Regional Council meeting, it was Deputy Premier Serhiy Tyhypko who gave the first report offering brief information on the economic decrees of the President instead of Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko, who sat in the presidium beside Leonid Kuchma.
Commenting on the economic situation he said: “The state has an impossible, unrealistic budget.” After these words the President sneezed, though he looked pretty healthy. People in Ukraine believe that if somebody sneezes after you say something, this something is really true. The question is why our state officials came to this conclusion and decided to go back to decrees as a means of economic oversight.
This experienced “master of decrees,” who had a great deal of practice during his stint as Prime Minister, apparently decided not to assume responsibility despite his appeal to the Ukrainian people, but to give it to young reformer Serhiy Tyhypko.
This has considerably added confidence to Tyhypko and he even dared to confront his patron. He was speaking about the pensions for high level state officials and Pustovoitenko interrupted the speaker suggesting not cutting the pensions. Tyhypko disagreed; according to him this gap calls forth many questions among everyday people. Moreover, in the immediate future there will be no money to pay these pensions, because the budget deficit is approaching Hr 2 billion and as Tyhypko justly noted, “We are almost on the brink.” The tax income of the revenue budget part comes to only 56% of what was planned.
Hence, we need decrees again, which will be called regulations. Eight have already been issued. Another ten will be signed next week. Tyhypko called the decisions complicated and unpopular. He also introduced new word: compensators, measures to reduce the pain from newly introduced decisions. The Deputy Prime Minister compared the pensions of the World War II veterans and people who suffered from Chornobyl. He said there was a ten time difference in favor of those who suffered from Chornobyl. However he did not mention the compensation mechanism for pension cuts. Sharp discussion is predicted to take place concerning the decrees, because the planned cut of the VAT from 20% down to 18% may create new holes in the state budget.






