Kiev, Ukraine. Recently the IMF tried to point out to Ukrainian officials that their pension system is about to fail in provinding $60 odd dollars a month to people in retirement age brackets. Now the IMF is sick of talking and simply says get your house in order, or we are taking our money elsewhere. Ukraine’s response is simply to screw it’s own people to get more easy IMF cash, by upping the retirement age.
The implementation of pension reforms in Ukraine is an important condition for the cooperation between Kiev and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Director of the IMF’s European Department, Poul Thomsen said.
According to Thomsen, within the framework of pension reform, it is necessary to raise the retirement age, which will lead to a reduction in the deficit of the Pension Fund of Ukraine. According to the Director of the European Department of the IMF, Ukraine has the world’s second largest Pension Fund deficit in relation to the country’s GDP.
Earlier, on April 3rd, during a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that Kiev plans to implement pension reforms that will meet the requirement to “eliminate the deficit in the medium term.” According to UNIAN, the government of Ukraine plans to increase pensions as of October 1, 2017 and cancel the taxation of pensions for working pensioners. At the same time, Kiev plans to raise the retirement age to sync the numbers with IMF, Rozenko says.
The last tranche from the IMF in the amount of 1 billion USD was received by Ukraine on April 3rd. According to Groysman, the tranche will be used to replenish the reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine, bankrupt from internal theft by government officials.
The IMF loans provided to Ukraine amount to about $8.4 billion USD. Kiev is hoping to receive another $8.3 billion USD by the end of 2018, as part of the IMF lending program, which is aimed at supporting economic reforms in Ukraine and preserving financial stability in the country, while allowing for massive embezzlement by Poroshenko Administration officials.