A World Bank commission arrived in Kyiv on December 3 on a two-day visit to study the possibility of Ukraine receiving a System Program loan, First Vice Premier Yuri Yekhanurov last Friday told regional correspondents of the state Ukrinform Agency. After all loan details have been specified, Mr. Yekhanurov noted, the document is likely to be approved by the World Bank Board of Governors in early May and the loan itself will reach Ukraine in late 2001.
“For 14 months and 21 days Ukraine has done without IMF loans,” the first vice premier stressed. Further prospects for IMF cooperation are like this: if parliament approves the 2001 budget on December 7, as the government hopes, and passes the law on banks and banking (an IMF demand), the Board of Governors can be expected to discuss funding Ukraine on December 20. Hence after the premier said that “the pro-Presidential forces will suffer a defeat” if the 2001 budget is not approved, now the government, which has received not one cent from the IMF, has decided to “scare a little” the budgetary process participants with the same IMF.
As to Ukraine’s cooperation with the EBRD, Mr. Yekhanurov reiterated that Ukraine does not accept the European bank’s conditions for a $150 million loan to assist the privatization of Ukrtelekom because Ukrainian law does not provide for transformation of debentures into the shares of the enterprises being privatized. Meanwhile, he did not rule out that other financial instruments will be used to pay off the loan.
The first vice premier also touched upon the subject of energy debts, traditionally sensitive for the government. According to him, the past few days have shown an upward tendency in energy resources payment debts: for instance, while the debt was UAH 9.858 billion as of July 1, now it is reached UAH 9.970 billion. At the same time, Mr. Yekhanurov noted with satisfaction that wage arrears went down from UAH 6.4 billion early in the year to UAH 5.5 billion as of November 1. Pension Fund arrears are UAH 1.4 billion, but, Mr. Yekhanurov promised, the government is sure to squeeze out this money next year. In all probability, this can hardly be done without mounting fiscal and oversight pressure on the economy.
