Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday pledged to pay all pension debts by Oct. 1, three months than earlier promised
earlier promised.
Yushchenko said he will take personal control the situation with pension debts, which have become a painful problem in Ukraine.
“The government has received a direct order from President Leonid Kuchma … who set the task of putting an end to this shameful phenomenon,” Yushchenko said in a statement carried by the Interfax news agency.
According to figures released by the premier earlier this month, pension debts stood at Hr 1.45 billion ($268 million) at the start 2000, and only 32 percent of Ukraine’s pensioners were paid in full. As of July 1, the figure rose to 62 percent, but the government still owed pensioners across the country some Hr 850 million.
Wage and pension debts long have plagued Ukraine’s shaky economy. At the start of the month, the government’s debt for various social payments including pensions and back wages totaled some Hr 2.4 billion, officials said Tuesday.
Yushchenko, a reformist former head of the central bank, has promised to deal with the wage and pension debts when he was appointed prime minister late last year amid hopes for revival of Ukraine’s permanently troubled post-Soviet economy. He has said that pension debts would be paid back by the end of 2000.
“The reforms are not conducted for the sake of reforms, but for the sake of each and every Ukrainian,” Yushchenko said in Tuesday’s statement. “This is our joint task. Our welfare is in our own hands.”
