OREANDA-NEWS. August 12, 2010. The heads of the Government demands that the relevant ministries and agencies and, above all, local authorities improve significantly the provision of housing subsidies to citizens of Ukraine – the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Andriy Klyuev said during the extended telephone conference with the heads of regional state administrations, Kiev and Sevastopol state administrations and the Council of Ministers of Crimea.

He recalled the words of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov that by September 1 in the country should be no family not knowing about opportunities to get help and save family budget.

"All the leaders in the field of social services should daily, including through local media, explain how to obtain subsidies. From regional leaders I demand that every person having right to subsidy, know how to get it" - Andriy Klyuev said.

Due to the introduction of new criteria for grants, low-income citizens will actually pay for services utilities less than before, the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine said.

However, today the telephone "hot line" of the Ministry of Labour the biggest quantity of questions was coming from Transcarpathian, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kherson regions and Kyiv, that indicates the insufficient level of advocacy for social support of population during payment of utilities, Andriy Klyuyev said.

The First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine drew attention of the leaders of mentioned regions and Kyiv on the need to intensify work in this direction: "I demand from ministries and agencies, local government and regional government agencies, all organizations involved in social protection, that this massive and painstaking work was done on time and with maximum attention to people. In no way we can have queues".

In his turn the Minister of Labour and Social Policy Vasily Nadraha said that in the Kiev region Brovary pensioners are sent for income reference to the Pension fund. "If the local administration has not so far established such work the employees are to go themselves to get the required references in the pension fund" - he said. At the same time, in the Vinnytsia region there are facts of subsidy rejection by reason of current debt. This, according to the minister, is the direct violation of the law.

According to government contact centre monitoring, the biggest number of problems on subsidies comes from the Kyiv region and Kyiv.

According to Ministry of Labour, the work on public information on simplified provision of housing subsidies for families having pensioners is ongoing. Regions have received 9.5 million documents necessary for registration of subsidies for such families by entry principle, i.e. without need to come by their own to get the subsidy to departments of Ministry of Labour. As of August 9, the Pension Fund has sent to the region to convert six million documents. 322 tons of informative materials about subsidy were prepared.