Kyiv, October 2 (Interfax-Ukraine) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) may refuse to disburse to Ukraine the next tranche of its Stand-By loan if the authorities refuse to raise prices on gas for households and heat supply companies, according to the Ukrainian Presidential Secretariat's first deputy head, Oleksandr Shlapak.
“The IMF is rather uncompromising on this issue,” Shlapak said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
“Unless Ukraine sticks to the agreements it has undertaken, it won’t get the financing,” the official said.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko said the government had failed to fulfil five out of six preliminary measures in its agreements with the IMF.
The head of the main social and economic service of the presidential secretariat, Roman Zhukovsky said that after the failure to raise gas prices for heat suppliers starting from October 1, they could say that Ukraine hadn’t fulfilled any of the obligations.
As reported, the Ukraine authorities and the IMF have agreed that the National Electricity Regulatory Commission will raise gas prices by 20% for households from September 1 and for utilities from October 1.
However, on September 25, Kyiv District Administrative Court issued a ruling banning the commission from publishing and introducing its resolution on the 20% increase in the ceiling prices of gas for heat supply companies from October 1, 2009.
The ruling of the administrative court was issued under an appeal of a trade union.
