OREANDA-NEWS. June 11, 2010. The main innovation of the draft Budget Code, which the Government has sent to the Parliament, is to increase the financial autonomy of local budgets. The Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said this during a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

"For the first time, not in words but in deeds, cities and villages in Ukraine will receive an additional resource that next year will be about 12 billion UAH", said Mykola Azarov and added that these funds can allow implementing of a large number of regional projects.

The Head of Government also noted that under the new version of the Budget Code eight national taxes go to the local level, communities will get one fifth of corporate income tax return.
Mykola Azarov informed that these funds will be proportionally distributed between the regional, district, rural and village budgets: 40% assigned to the regional budgets, 60% will use districts, of which one third will be sent to village, rural and city councils. Budgets can also pool their resources for joint projects.

"Thus, firstly, local budgets will receive additional resources solely on development expenditures, which always lack. Secondly, the Government encourages local authorities to increase the economic potential of regions to support business and realize large-scale projects", said the Prime Minister.

According to him, one more important aspect is that local budgets are entitled to make medium term planning. "We are setting anti-corruption and transparent processes of budget resources management and increasing the responsibility of the actors of the budget process", said Mykola Azarov.

The Head of the Government stressed that the budget reform program bases on the ideology of program-target method of the budget funds management and provides the transition to medium-term planning.