ZHITOMYR – Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych has said that gas prices for the public may grow by 20% in October 2009, as this is one of the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine to get tranches of the fund's loan.
“This issue [a 20% increase in gas prices for the public] has yet to be resolved, and this is a demand from the IMF,” he said live on television in Zhytomyr on Tuesday.
Yanukovych said that statements were currently being made that “gas prices will at last grow from October.”
He said that the proposed rise in gas prices for the population by 20% from September 1 had been postponed, as the “government was afraid to do it.”
He said that the public, the opposition and trade unions had opposed such an increase and that a respective ruling had been made in the courts.
