By KYIV. Nov 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ministry of Finance will consider the opportunity to accept monthly treasury reports from local authorities to expedite borrowing of local budgets from foreign partners, Oleksandr Koren, director of the department of inter-budgetary relations policy of the Ministry of Finance, has said.
“We get through it all thoroughly. But the only thing is that the monthly reporting does not have all the forms…. The monthly reporting may not contain information regarding the volume of debt obligations for the previous year,” Koren said, responding to the proposal of Senior Banker for Sustainable Infrastructure at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Ukraine Denys Gaiovy at the discussion “Possibilities of financing the municipal sector during the war and during the reconstruction period” initiated by Ukreximbank in Kyiv.
According to Gaiovy, it is worth taking some measures to ensure that municipal financing projects from the EBRD are not delayed due to the expectation of treasury reports, which local authorities are required to provide to the Ministry of Finance to obtain approval for external borrowing, and do not stand idle in the first quarter.
“Perhaps we can… accept monthly treasury reports, which are already available at the beginning of January, or find some other way out so that the first quarter does not fall out,” Gaiovy said.
The banker cited as an example the situation with the financing of the Mykolaiv municipality, emphasizing that grant funds and EBRD funds have already been approved for the project to restore water supply in Mykolaiv.
“In January, they could have already moved. But now there is a delay, from the point of view that they will need to wait until treasury reporting appears, then submit this package [of documents to the Ministry of Finance], it will be considered for a certain time. That is, in reality they will be able to sign documents under a very good scenario in March or, probably, in April,” the EBRD representative said.
