Mykola Tomenko: The Government implements Anti-Ukrainian Humanitarian Policy
At the today´s briefing at the Parliament, Mykola Tomenko, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine focused on the humanitarian aspect of the bill "On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2011." He stated that having analyzed the draft budget, one could make a conclusion that "the government would like to deny the 20th anniversary of independence of Ukraine."
M. Tomenko stressed that in the light of the 20th anniversary of the Ukrainian independence, the state shall increase financial support of the educational, cultural and humanitarian spheres. However, the situation drastically differs. "If there is no strategy of humanitarian policy in Ukraine, if there is no Deputy Minister on Humanitarian Policy, then the lack of the humanitarian policy is obvious", he emphasised.
The Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament reminded that the developers of the Budget failed to consult the experts of the ministries and neglected their proposals. "The budget seems to be written by the group of people in the Ministry on Finance who ignored the public opinion and the standpoints of the subject ministries", he stressed. As an example, M. Tomenko mentioned that the State Budget allocated UAH 20 million for the publication of the Ukrainian books (UAH 33 million in 2010).
Moreover, expenditures on the construction of sports facilities (except Euro-2012 infrastructure) were cut down. "Expenditures for the construction and modernization of the technical base in the sports sector in Ukraine total UAH 1 billion 621 thousand", M. Tomenko stated.
According to M. Tomenko, "the state and the Government decided to liquidate tourism as a sphere of the state economy." He announced that the financial support of the tourism development in 2011 totaled only UAH 826 billion.
The Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine believes that it is difficult to predict the work of the state in the consolidation of the Ukrainian values. "We face the drastic cut-down in the expenses for the cultural development of Ukraine and popularization of national values. The expenditures concerning theatres, museums, and natural reserves remain at the rate of 2010", Mykola Tomenko stated.