Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov and Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Oleh Nemchynov visited the Chernivtsi Regional Clinical Hospital as part of a working visit to the region, the press service of the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration reports.
The ministers discussed with physicians the validity of the COVID-19 treatment protocols and a list of missing equipment.
“In the near future, several hundred expert-class mechanical ventilation devices and mobile x-ray units will be purchased with the funds from the European Investment Bank (EIB),” Stepanov said.
He also discussed the salaries of doctors with head of the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration Serhiy Osachuk.
“Together with the premier and the president, we are looking for ways to increase the salaries of doctors by an average of 50% this year. I also think that the next year 6% of GDP should be allocated for health care system, not 3% as it is now,” the minister said.
The big privatization will be launched as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over, and the Dnipro Hotel will become its pilot project, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“As to medium-sized and big privatization, everything is ready. It will be launched after COVID-19. The first target – the Dnipro Hotel – is ready. As we promised, we started with public administration agency,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The president also said the rest of hotels on balance of the public administration agency will be handed over to the State Property Fund.
The privatization targets have been “cleared off” legal cases, Zelensky said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expects that capital amnesty will be introduced in 2020, and the respective legislative initiative will be registered in the Verkhovna Rada soon. “We will introduce amnesty this year. We have to do it, we agreed on it and promised people. But now there were offers for the percent – 5% both for money and real estate… I think today the situation in the country is difficult, we need to think about these percent. If a person has any real estate or other facilities, this percentage should be relaxed,” the president said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Perhaps real estate can be amnestied at a lower percentage or even at zero,” he added.
”We need to turn this page of history so that all Ukrainians would like to be taxpayers,” the head of state said.
Earlier, tax amnesty bill No. 1232 proposed a mechanism for individuals to declare hidden income, the tax rates of 5% and 10%, as well as a lowered 2.5% rate when investing in government domestic loan bonds.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plans to find financing in the amount of $3 billion for the construction program to restore bridges across Ukraine.
“There is a planned large program, which I am looking another $3 billion for, as this is my responsibility. These are all the bridges of our country,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.
According to the president, only in Ivano-Frankivsk region there are about 1,900 bridges of different sizes.
Zelensky also said that it is planned to complete the construction of a bridge in Zaporizhia in two and a half years.
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia in January-March 2020 saw a loss of UAH 7 billion, according to materials of the Cabinet of Ministers posted on its website on Wednesday.
According to the document, since March 11, 2020, Ukrzaliznytsia has suspended economic activity, which negatively affects its financial and economic performance.
“According to the results of the first quarter of this year, the company saw losses of UAH 7 billion… At the same time, according to the company’s forecasts, due to the need to repay loans and interest on them (UAH 11 billion and UAH 3 billion, respectively), a shortage of funds by the end of the year may amount to UAH 16 billion,” the company said in an explanatory note.
According to the document, the reduction in production in Ukraine, the shutdown of enterprises-shippers and the negative situation on international markets led to a 4.8% decrease in total cargo turnover in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year.
In order to minimize the negative consequences, Ukrzaliznytsia is implementing a number of compensation measures: an idle time for staff, suspension of planned salary increases, restriction of procurement of material and technical resources and services (except for critical positions), and optimization of payments.
On this basis, the Infrastructure Ministry proposed that the basic standard for sending part of the profits allocated for the payment of dividends based on the results of economic activities in 2019 is set in the amount of 30% (currently – 90%) for Ukrzaliznytsia.
