The government stole children's money
The Ukrainian government underpaid childcare benefits. In 2008, for each employed citizen, the government saved about UAH 410 monthly by doing this and for each unemployed citizen – UAH 340 per month.
The Rivne Agency for Investigative Journalism investigates how representatives of the government and parliament economized over UAH 150 million (approximately 19 million US-dollars) in two years on Rivne children; over 5 billion – on children from all over Ukraine.
Rivne Agency for Investigative Journalism talks to Rivne residents who were not paid their full benefit payments for the care of children under three years of age.
They discovered that in 2007 and 2008, the government underpaid childcare benefits. In 2008, for each employed citizen, the government saved about UAH 410 monthly by doing this and for each unemployed citizen – UAH 340 per month.
Instead of the full benefit people received only UAH 130 monthly. Next, the investigative team looks into how the issue has become politicized – gone from a popular promise to voters to an instrument of election campaigns.
Though the Rivne local department of labor and social protection says that they are ready to pay the full compensation, in order to allocate money from the state budget – the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada are required to approve such a measure.
Due to the peculiarities of Rivne administrative and judicial structure, citizens court cases filed to seek the full compensation were routed between city courts, where judges refused to consider the cases and involved the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the State Treasury and the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy as co-defendants, administrative courts, where the judges must convene a board to hear the cases, and eventually to the Lviv Appellate Court, which has yet to take up a case.
Nobody interviewed for the story can recall a case in which the government fulfilled court decisions and paid out the full amount of compensation benefit due to parents for the care of a child less than three years of age.
Lawyers say that they support citizens continuing to bring lawsuits to court – and believe the government will eventually have to consider making restitution. Out of 38 thousand Rivne parents that have the right to receive a complete (not partial) benefit for the care of a child less than three years of age, about 2,000 took the matter to court, a little bit more than 5 percent of all possible plaintiffs.
Read the whole story or the original articles here:
