Very disappointing, if true. This might mean no IMF money until September now, at the earliest. That said, we have been seeing reverse currency substitution on the back of macro-stabilization, allowing the National Bank of Ukraine to build foreign-exchange reserves. But this IMF tranche was not really about the money, it was about the reforms to be signed off as conditions for IMF loan disbursement.
I guess politicians prefer to fiddle – and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman perhaps does not have the political capital to deliver reforms thru the Rada as we had assumed.
In recent days we have seen a number of disappointments:
* An upsurge in fighting in the east;
* The murder of a prominent and respected journalist in Kyiv;
* The failure to secure bids in the attempt to sell the landmark Odessa Chemical Plant – the sale of which was seen as important for the IMF. In the end the price tag was set too high – given the political uncertainties around Ukraine, and the legal challenges to the sale from a prior successful bidder, none other than (billionaire oligarch Igor) Kolomoisky.
