Hundreds of Chornobyl nuclear disaster cleanup workers protested outside parliament when the legislature held its first session this year to demand full pension payments.
The people
who risked their lives by exposure to radiation to clean up the Chornobyl
accident site in 1986 have for more than two years now been staging protests in Kyiv and
around the country to have their full pensions restored.
The
government has stopped paying many of them full pensions and now owes them
approximately Hr 11 billion, says Chornobyl Union of Ukraine, a non-profit
group comprised of cleanup workers from the nuclear accident site.
“My husband was 25 in 1986 when he was sent to
Chornobyl. Now he is a very sick (and) disabled man,” says Valentyna
Bondarevska who came to Kyiv on Feb. 5 to protest from Vinnytsya Oblast.
She added that
her husband receives a monthly pension of Hr 2,011, despite a court ruling that
set his pension at Hr 5,000. “The government executed the (court’s) decision
until August 2012, and then we were told there is no money,” said Bondarevska.
Olga
Tsabenko from the town of Myronivka in Kyiv Oblast says she spent her life
taking care of her husband who suffered from leukemia and diabetes since 1986,
after he had spent less than two months in the disaster zone as a cleanup
worker.
“After he
died I have not been receiving any pension that I should, as a widow of a cleanup
worker,” she says.
Gennadiy
Shiryaev, a cleanup worker from Kyiv, says the pension calculation system is
very unfair: “I have a decent pension after Chornobyl but people like most of my friends, who were
deployed to Chornobyl because they were in the army were not paid anything at
all and now receive a pension of Hr 1,100. Additionally they are paid Hr 120
for health maintenance a year – a ridiculous amount. Note that all of these
people are disabled just like myself,” says Shiryaev.
“We are told
that there is no money in the budget. But I read in the news all the time that each
member of parliament is given Hr 30,000 every year for health maintenance. This
is outrageous,” he adds angrily.
Several lawmakers
from the opposition have met with the protesters, including Iryna Sekh, head of
the parliamentary committee on ecology, natural resources and outcomes the Chornobyl
disaster. She said the committee will push for a special hearing in parliament on
their situation.
“We are
nearing the anniversary of the tragedy and, unfortunately, many problems of
cleanup workers remain and pile up,” Sekh said.
She added
that financing of Chornobyl programs from the state budget has shrunk each
year. “The 2013 state budget has Hr 154 million allocated (for Chornobyl
programs) while the need is Hr 11 billion,” said Sekh.
Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can
be reached at [email protected]
