Finance Ministry resumes medium-term budget planning

The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine is resuming medium-term budget planning and already this year plans to add a three-year forecast of key budget indicators to the draft state budget for 2024, First Deputy Finance Minister Denys Uliutin said at a meeting of the interdepartmental working group on the development of the public finance management system.

"Next year, we plan to resume the cycle of full-fledged medium-term budget planning with the preparation of the Budget Declaration for 2025-2027, which will contain state policy goals with indicators for their achievement, recovery priorities and the appropriate allocation of resources," the press service of the ministry quoted him as saying.

He stressed that another important area in the context of efficient use of resources is the improvement of public investment management, since the need for funds for recovery, according to the World Bank, is enormous ($411 billion), and most of the funding is expected to come through public investment.

"Therefore, it is very important to ensure the unification of approaches to the selection of projects, to define a clear framework for renewal projects and to strengthen the controlling role of the Ministry of Finance at all stages of the investment cycle," the first deputy minister believes.

Uliutin called ensuring the effective mobilization of taxpayers' funds and accountability for their use as another priority, since taxes and fees are the main source of funding for Ukraine's defense capability.

Speaking about the current year, the official singled out as the main tasks the maximum possible resumption of those processes and procedures in the field of public finance management that were suspended with the outbreak of the war, and the necessary preparatory actions for large-scale restoration of the country and Ukraine's integration into the EU.

The resolution on the strategy for reforming the public finance management system for 2022-2025 was adopted at a government meeting on December 29, 2021. It envisaged further improvement of the public finance management system, and its implementation was supposed to result in a more efficient system for managing them.