By KYIV. Oct 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Fund for Eliminating the Consequences of Armed Aggression, recently created by the Verkhovna Rada as part of a special fund of the state budget of Ukraine, is a good opportunity for international partners to support the country’s emergency recovery, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has said.
"We propose a clear mechanism: if you want to help us now, here is such a mechanism for you through the budget. This is directly for current needs, critical infrastructure," he told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, if there is a desire to directly implement some project with the affected municipalities or companies, this can be continued, but the new fund creates an opportunity to direct funds for quick recovery through the budget.
"This mechanism will be administered by the Ministry of Finance, but we will not use these funds: it will have to be the Ministry for Development of Territories and Communities, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health. There will be a list of priorities where the infrastructure is destroyed, and then these funds will be channeled to them," Marchenko said.
He said that if it is about grant funds, then they can be directed through international trust funds, for example, the new World Bank Ukraine Recovery Trust Fund.
The Finance Minister said that he is now explaining to partners this new budgetary mechanism for financing emergency recovery, sharing this issue with the "big" post-war recovery, the form and architecture of which is currently under discussion.
"Now we devote 90% of our time to communications. It’s not easy, but we live somehow for eight months. When they ask me how you manage, I say: if you gave $5 billion a month, as promised, it would be better," Marchenko said half-jokingly.
According to him, Ukraine in general and the Ministry of Finance, in particular, managed to establish normal direct contacts with the leadership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and G7 finance ministers.
Commenting, at the request of the agency, on his election as Governor of the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the IMF for 2023 at the annual meeting of these organizations held in October, Marchenko said that he was talking about performing several basic functions: chairing the annual and spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, participating in the development and coordination of internal documents of organizations, coordination of remuneration for the management of the IMF and the World Bank and other procedural issues.
