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The State Treasury has frozen some Hr 82 million in aid to the provincial and local budgets in Zaporizhia, head of the Zaporizhia provincial administration Oleksandr Starukh said at a press conference on Wednesday. The State Treasury has frozen some Hr 82 million in aid to the provincial and local budgets in Zaporizhia, head of the Zaporizhia provincial administration Oleksandr Starukh said at a press conference on Wednesday.

He said this is one of key problems entering 2010, and that it amounts to "irresponsible budget policy of the government and the parliament."

According to Starukh, main agencies of the government are also responsible for "depletion of funds from enterprises of the province." He said the central government has a debt of about UAH 2 billion million to enterprises of Zaporizhia, over UAH 800 million of which is in the form of non-reimbursed VAT, and about UAH 1.2 billion is taxes paid in advance.

"All this together with a failure to adopt the state budget for 2010 will only strengthen the economic crisis in the country and will lead to serious problems in the near future," Starukh said.