It is planned that the Rada will consider amendments to the 2020 budget at an extraordinary meeting on April 13.
The Ukrainian government decided to postpone the planned large-scale privatization of state property in 2020 due to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This follows from the draft budget changes for 2020, which were registered on Sunday in the Verkhovna Rada and posted on its website.
According to the draft budget amendments, revenues from privatization this year should decrease by 11.5 billion hryvnia ($422 million), or 24 times – to 0.5 billion hryvnia ($18.35 million).
It is planned that the Rada will consider amendments to the budget for 2020 at an extraordinary meeting on April 13. On March 30, the Parliament rejected the original version of the state budget sequestration and sent it for revision. The new version provides for the reduction of budget revenues by 119.7 billion UAH ($4.4 billion), to 975.8 billion UAH ($35.8 billion), or 11%. At the same time, the state budget expenditures will increase by 82.4 billion hryvnia ($3 billion), or by 7%. According to the draft amendments, tax revenues will decrease by 145.4 billion hryvnia ($5.33 billion). The expenditure part of the state budget will be increased due to the creation of a coronavirus fund, the size of which will leave 64.67 billion hryvnia ($2.37 billion).
The budget deficit ceiling will more than triple to 298.4 billion hryvnia ($10.95 billion). The government plans to cover the deficit through borrowings of UAH 296.7 billion ($10.89 billion) as well as through proceeds from privatization.
At the end of March, the head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Dmytro Sennichenko said that the authorities had suspended the program of privatization of large state property due to the unfavorable situation and worsening economic situation due to the pandemic. He specified that the government did not give up the so-called small privatization aimed at selling state property to small and medium businesses during the crisis.
On March 3, 431 state enterprises were put up for privatization in Ukraine. Earlier, the government agreed on a draft law that allows privatization of strategic state-owned enterprises, including energy and defense enterprises, including Naftogaz, Ukrainian Main Gas Pipelines, Ukrtransgas, Ukrnafta, Ukrgazdobycha, Chornomornaftogaz, a number of defense plants, Ukrzheldoroga, Ukrposhta and others. The document states that part of the state capital in these enterprises should not be less than 50% plus one share.