By Yana MOISEYENKOVA, The Day
The endless series of attacks on National Bank Governor Viktor Yushchenko
(to be more exact, against his post) also continued last week. This time
the NBU was "fired at" by the main contender for the post (by parliamentary
grapevine) former Minister of the Economy and now People's Deputy Viktor
Suslov.
It is curious that the pretext was given by Mr. Yushchenko himself.
Last Wednesday he promised journalists that on Thursday he would make public
the amount of hard-currency reserves "which have risen after receiving
loans..." Which he did not do, of course. The ex-minister at once trumpeted
for the whole country to hear (via the UNIAN Agency) that NBU currency
reserves are "catastrophically low" and "they are not sufficient to maintain
the (hryvnia's exchange) rate," while the cessation of tenders at the Ukrainian
Currency Exchange on March 19 is just but recognition of the impossibility
of propping up the hryvnia. Mr. Suslov tried to bring this home by adding
that Ukraine is on the edge of an inflationary abyss.
It is not ruled out that even such revealing forecasts (we must admit,
to be fair, that Mr. Suslov, working in the government, was more diplomatic
and optimistic) would have been lost among many other attacks on the National
Bank if they had not fallen on ready ground. The point is that the NBU
closed access to information on hard-currency reserves, which had been
steadily depleting owing to chronic repayment of foreign debts, in January.
It is officially known that in January the NBU reserves were $680 million.
According to unofficial information, the reserves dropped to $360-380 million
in January-March (i.e., in the pre-loan period). Incidentally, one source
suggests that the NBU managed to attract some additional sources of funding,
for the amount spent from the reserve fund does not cover expenditures
for foreign payments, administrative regulation of the hryvnia rate, and
servicing government bonds.
Whatever the case, the NBU chief really kept at bay the topic of NBU
coffers and asked all governmental officials "not to speak about a destabilized
rate." Mr. Yushchenko's subordinates, not yet as proficient as he in the
art of talking at length and saying nothing, occasionally said something
like: "the reserves have risen by 40 million" or "the reserves have dropped
by 40 million," but this clarified nothing because the initial figure was
not known. Today's information is just as clear. NBU reserves have gone
up by $300 million at the expense of IMF and World Bank loans. That is
we can suppose, in purely arithmetical terms, that the level of reserves
has approached the January index. But this is still very, very low. Having
taken out new loans, we are still more bogged down in debt. For this
year we have to shell out Hr 1.8-billion as repayment of the old pre-March
debts alone (as estimated by Mr. Suslov, $2.2 billion, i.e., 40% of budget
revenues).
It would be interesting to know who could venture to state the level
of NBU reserves with such an apparent discrepancy of figures, which is,
by the way, not only a financial indicator but also a symbol of statehood?
And how then (we already see that the reserves are meager) could we believe
the NBU chief, who promised on April 4 both a smooth devaluation of the
hryvnia and (!) a reduction of the discount rate (a couple of weeks ago
Mr. Yushchenko was tearing out his hair, telling us it was wrong to correlate
the banking and discount rates and it was impossible and dangerous to reduce
the former in today's situation)? Incidentally, Mr. Yushchenko, contrary
to all forecasts, continues to insist that the hryvnia exchange rate has
been stabilized. "Over the past four days, the NBU has been quite actively
buying hard currency on the Interbank Currency Exchange," said he (since
September, the NBU has only been selling hard currency, partially satisfying
Exchange demand - Author). If this is at last true, then why did
Mr. Yushchenko call reduction of the discount rate "a political step toward
bringing down the price of money, so that it might be more accessible to
the economy?" Meanwhile, they speak more often and aloud in Cabinet of
Ministers corridors about the necessity of still "more additional" IMF
loans...
PS: On April 5 the NBU press service released a statement indicating
that the National Bank hard-currency reserves as of April 1 were $945 million.






