OREANDA-NEWS. April 26, 2012. Today’s economy growth rates show that the country’s economic power is starting to recover.

It undoubtedly follows that a state gradually gaining momentum should quite predictably meet the challenges of raising living standards and renewing social fairness.

To this extent, as ordered by the President of Ukraine about the consistency of implementing the state’s living standards raising social policy, the Government has made relevant changes to the 2012 State Budget.

On April 16, 2012, the President signed a respective Law of Ukraine amending the State Budget Law for 2012 (with respect to Solving Social Issues).

In such a manner, the 2012 budget changes have increased public revenue and expenditure by 33.8 billion UAH including 29.2 billion UAH for the general fund and 4.6 billion UAH for the special fund.

State budget’s general fund revenue has been increased by 10% including the increase broken down by figures as follows:

- value added tax - by 16.9 billion UAH (including 2.9 billion UAH for domestic goods, work and services and 14 billion UAH for imported goods);

- corporate profit tax - by 3.4 billion UAH;

- administrative services fee – by 1.8 billion UAH.

Additional revenue of 6 billion UAH is also included for rewarding the product sharing agreements involving subsoil areas within the Black Sea continental shelf.

The President of Ukraine has advanced significant social initiatives. They are numerous and designated for various people including both those capable of earning and those unable to provide themselves, people with disabilities, orphans and old people. This is why new social initiatives that have been declared are surely sound and publicly demanded and strategically precise.

To this extent, the 2012 budget amendments provide for extra budget revenue to cover the implementation of new social initiatives and other social measures at first, as well as settlement of urgent budget issues including:

1) improvement of pension provision – 9.1 billion UAH including:

pension recomputation for people retired before 2008 – 7.7 billion UAH;

raising, by up to 42 percent of disabled people cost of living, of the pension supplement for deceased veterans’ family members – 0.2 billion UAH;

raising the pension supplement from 15 up to 20 percent of living cost for awarded veterans and from 10 to 15 percent of living cost for non-awarded veterans for disabled persons – 0.4 billion UAH;

step-by-step raise till the end of the year (by 20 percent in average) of pensions for military servants, senior officers and juniors enlisted having left the military service - 0.7 billion UAH.

2) social services modernization aimed at full government coverage of vulnerable persons (pensioners, disabled people and young families) – 0.4 billion UAH;

3) providing prosthetic devices and wheeled chairs to disabled people to promote special needs persons’ successful social integration – 97.4 million UAH;

4) rehabilitating children affected by infantile cerebral paralysis at an early age with international standards applied – 60.8 million UAH;

5) raising the living cost for disabled persons and pensioners from 80 up to 100 percent of cost of living, and for children, from 50 up to 75 percent – 0.7 billion UAH;

6) raising the 1st and 2nd group carers allowances related to thought disorders with respect to the minimum salary, tenfold – 0.1 billion UAH;

7) raising veterans’ one-time annual benefits before May the 5th by more than 80 percent – 0.15 billion UAH;

8) increasing housing expenses for disabled veterans, peacekeepers and for people affected by Chornobyl disaster, and visually handicapped persons and persons hard of hearing – 0.2 billion UAH;

9) raising the expenditures for networking regional perinatal centers with innovation technologies and state-of–the-art facilities – 0.3 billion UAH;

10) functioning tools for making the mortgage cheaper for citizens in need of improved living conditions (refunding the contrast between the 2 3 percent rate and market value) - 1 billion UAH;

11) refunding citizens’ loss from devaluating their savings deposited before January 2, 1992 in branches of the Savings Bank of the USSR functioning in Ukraine – 6.2 billion UAH;

12) adoption of orphans and children deprived of parental care in foster families and family-type children’s homes – 37.8 million UAH;

13) remunerating budget-funded employees – 1.5 billion UAH;

14) implementing the Law of Ukraine “On Enhancing the Prestige of Mining Labour” in relation to the application of minimum salary legally established and increased by 30 percent – 1.2 billion UAH;

15) expenditure of municipal authorities’ salary fund under the applicable salary system – 0.3 billion UAH;

16) increasing transfers for local budgets including those directed to:

rewarding local authorities for exceeding corporate income tax and excise tax annual calculated revenues (as set by Article 108 of the Budget Code) - 1 billion UAH

debt repayment for the contrast of heat energy, water supply and water drain tariffs – 4.6 billion UAH;

social and economic development - 1 billion UAH;

increasing the Regional Development Fund by 0.5 billion UAH;

Kyiv city’s functioning as a capital - by 1 billion UAH.

The ultimate goal of the President’s social changes is to gradually solve the social disparity problem in Ukraine and shift to a more up-to-date and complex model of social care and social protection to precondition the improvement of socially vulnerable citizens’ welfare.