The revenues of the general fund of Ukraine's national budget for 2013 amounted to Hr 291.5 billion, which was a mere 1% up on 2012, former Finance Minister and MP from the opposition UDAR party Viktor Pynzenyk said.
“State tax agencies saw a 1.9% decrease in receipts, customs agencies saw a 3.9% reduction, while the National Bank gathered a record high amount – it transferred Hr 28.3 billion [to the national budget], which was 20% up year-over-year,” a posting on the party’s Web site quotes Pynzenyk as saying.
The target figure for the revenues of the general fund of the national budget for 2013 was set at Hr 232.9 billion, but on Dec. 19, 2013, the Verkhovna Rada lowered it to Hr 304.48 billion.
“By raising the level of the planned revenues [of the national budget in 2014] by 20%, the government is not only making the country heavily indebted, but also endangers the financing of the budget sectors,” Pynzenyk said while commenting on the government’s national budget draft for 2014.
Due to a shortfall of budget revenues, Ukraine’s parliament late in December 2013 amended the national budget for 2013, having reduced the revenues by Hr 19.4 billion, or 5.2%, to Hr 370.56 billion. In particular, the revenues of the budget’s general fund were cut to Hr 304.48 billion.
At the same time, parliamentarians raised the deficit of the national budget by the similar amount, to Hr 69.98 billion. The reduction in the revenues was balanced by borrowings worth $3 billion from Russia, which was agreed by the Ukrainian and Russian presidents on Dec. 17, 2013.
As the State Treasury Service reported earlier, the revenues of the budget’s general fund January through November 2013 amounted to Hr 266.43 billion, which was 2.8%, or Hr 7.2 billion, up on year-over-year.
A total of Hr 42.38 billion was transferred to the budget’s special fund in the 11 months of 2013, which was 8.6%, or Hr 4 billion, down on the same period of 2012.
The deficit of Ukraine’s national budget in January-November 2013 was estimated at Hr 46.5 billion. The deficit of the budget’s general fund alone was Hr 50.48 billion.
