You're reading: Government committee critical of program to legalize shadow economy

KYIV, Nov. 24 (Ukrainian News) – The government economic development committee at its meeting on Thursday, November 23 was highly critical of the state program for the legalization of the shadow economy developed by the Economy Ministry and sent it back for reworking, First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov, who heads the committee, told journalists.

“Unfortunately, we rejected the program, since it is declarative in character, since it does not even contain definitions of the issues concerned with the ‘shadowization’ of the economy,” Yekhanurov said.

Yekhanurov said that the Economy Ministry has been working on the document for several years now but has not been able to make progress.

“Therefore there was a lot of criticism (from the committee), and we decided to send it (for reworking). They will work on it for another two months,” he said.

Yekhanurov said that he will prepare a report for the Cabinet of Ministers meeting, so that the Cabinet will be able to assess the activity of those ministries which have been unable to prepare the program for so long.

According to various estimates, from 40 to 60 percent of the Ukrainian economy is in the shadow sector.