Page 11 - UKRRptOct18

the release of the next $1.9bn tranche of aid.
An upswing in steel and investments in renewables have helped to boost Rinat Akhmetov’s net worth by 50%, after hitting rock bottom -- $4bn in 2015, Bloomberg writes. In a story headlined ‘Richest Man in Ukraine Climbs Back After Wealth Destroyed by War’ Bloomberg calculates that Akhmetov, owner of Metinvest and DTEK, is now worth $5.9bn. In January 2013, before the war cut him off from properties in Donetsk and Luhansk, Akhmetov was worth $22.4bn.
Ukraine’s nation's two-time former prime minister and head of the Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction Yulia Tymoshenko has called for the nation's parliament to dismiss the cabinet if the government decides to raise the price of gas for households, at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) insistence. The increase of the gas price for households is a crucial condition for the latest $2bn tranche due from the IMF and part of its $17.5bn package agreed with Kyiv in 2015 alongside the adoption of the anti-corruption court legislation, and the implementation of measures to ensure that the 2018 budget deficit will not exceed the planned level. "As soon as the government decides to raise the tariffs - here all are against - I propose that we all together submit a draft resolution on the resignation of the government as soon as they raise the price of gas. And all together we will vote," Interfax news agency quoted Tymoshenko as saying on September 3. On August 31, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told a cabinet meeting that the country's government is going to seek "a compromise" with the IMF over the tariffs. The new IMF funding is crucially important for Ukraine, which faces sovereign external debt amortisations at $1.8bn for the rest of 2018; at $3.3bn in 2019 and $3.9bn in 2020 (including bond repayments of $1.6bn in September 2019 and $2.4bn in 2020).
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko doubts that a decision to create a market for land will be made in the near future, he told the nation's parliament delivering an annual message in September.
The Russian government endorsed the elections in Donbas in violation of the Minsk Accords at the September 19 meeting of the Trilateral Contract Group , Ukrainian representative Iryna Gerashchenko reported on her Facebook page the same day. The Ukrainian position is that the accords only allow for local elections to be held in Donbas, not for prime minister or parliament. Recall, the legislatures of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics voted to hold elections on November 11 after Russia reportedly spent the summer putting them off while President Putin negotiated with Western leaders.
Ukraine’s parliament voted on September 18 to expand the membership of the Central Election Commission to 17 commissioners from 15 previously. The vote was supported by the Poroshenko Bloc, People’s Front and Radical Party factions, as well as 29 MPs of smaller groups. No votes were offered by the Fatherland party, led by leading presidential challenger Yulia Tymoshenko, the Self-Reliance party and the Russian-aligned Opposition Bloc. The CEC will organize the presidential elections scheduled for late March. Expanding the commission is part of the Presidential Administration’s plan to stack the commission with loyal members ahead of the presidential vote. This vote also revealed that a solid majority is in place to
11 UKRAINE Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com