December 17, 2009

Ukraine’s Government Begs the IMF for Help

The IMF gave Ukraine $16.4 billion in the beginning of 2009. But Ukraine got only $11 billion before the IMF got fed up with a political mess in the Ukrainian parliament and government spending unleashed by the Tymoshenko government. President Yushchenko made things worse when he sent the Minimum Wage Bill to the floor of Ukraine's parliament. However, Ukraine's president can only propose a bill while its destiny solely depends on a will of a whimsy parliament. Of course, the minimum wage bill got stock in the parliament because the Tymoshenko government directed all its attention to fighting the phantom outbreak of swine flu in Ukraine. Now we all know what kind of outbreak it was (see previous posts).

This week the Tymoshenko government sent its representatives, including two Deputy Ministers of Finance, Ihor Umanskiy and Anatoliy Myarkovsiy, to the IMF in Washington, D.C., USA. Now Ukraine's government asks just for two billion dollars from the rest of the frozen IMF loan. I have a very obvious question: What for? The government received $11 billion earlier this year and where did it go? Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko asks prime-minister Yulia Tymoshenko the same question. The Ukrainian economy still experiences the deepest recession among other FSU countries. What's going on with the government accountability in Ukraine? In the meantime, a date of the first round of the 2010 Presidential election is approaching.

 

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