Budget funding to boost vaccination and strengthen the border intelligence, the State Tax University

08 October 2021
Budget funding to boost vaccination and strengthen the border intelligence, the State Tax University
Home > Monitoring > Budget funding to boost vaccination and strengthen the border intelligence, the State Tax University

This plenary week the Verkhovna Rada was busy fighting about the position of the Speaker and had no time to make decisions of importance. Meanwhile, the Cabinet allocated ₴25 mln to promote vaccination against the COVID-19 and revisited budget allocation within the Ministry of Internal Affairs to strengthen the border intelligence.

Funding for the vaccination campaign

Cabinet resolution #1029 of October 6, 2021

Who is affected: Ukrainian citizens, government bodies, media, and medics.

Summary of the resolution: the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy will get ₴25 mln from the Anti-COVID-19 Fund to organize a communication campaign about the importance of vaccination against the coronavirus.

What is right:

  • Cabinet’s resolution will help to convince more people to get vaccinated. It will help to slow down the spreading of the COVID-19, allow to ease lockdown restrictions for educational and other establishments, and decrease chances that vaccines already distributed to medical establishments will expire
  • a successful information campaign will help Ukraine to end the lockdown sooner, two years of quarantine restrictions dealt a lot of damage to the economy and the quality of people’s lives.

What is wrong:

  • this resolution is not a part of a complex state policy on promoting vaccination and the effectiveness of the resulting campaign will probably be quite low.

Alternative solution: to develop and implement a complex educational campaign at different levels of the healthcare system to increase citizens’ trust in vaccination against COVID-19 and other diseases. 

On the creation of the State Tax University

Cabinet resolution #1202-р of October 6, 2021

Who is affected: the Ministry of Finance, lecturers and students of the University of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine.

Summary of the resolution:

  • creates the State Tax University that will incorporate the existing University of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine
  • the State Tax University will be managed by the Ministry of Finance
  • students of the University of the State Fiscal Service will continue to study the same curricula as before until graduation.

What is wrong: there is a trend in Ukraine that civil service tends to hire graduates from specialized higher education establishments (taxes, law, economy, etc.). Since as a rule there are only several universities in each sphere, whole services, units, or departments are staffed by graduates of the same universities. Being circles of close associates, they are ready to back each other up, so abuse of power, corruption, and cover-ups become a part of the day-to-day routine. For graduates from other universities, it is much harder to get a position within civil service if there are specialized universities.

Alternative solution: the modern job market is flexible, so for a state to create specialized higher education establishments except for medical and military is inadvisable. University graduates in law or economics have all the necessary knowledge and skills to work for a fiscal service. Thus, the state has to stop funding specialized higher education establishments on a general principle.

More funding for the border intelligence

Cabinet resolution #1190-р of October 6, 2021

Who is affected: the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.

Summary of the resolution: the Cabinet decided to spend ₴10.3 mln allocated for the apparatus of the State Border Guard Service and training of its staff on the state border intelligence instead.

What is right: taking into account recent aggressive speeches by the self-proclaimed president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and intensification of the Russia-Belarus integration, Ukraine has to strengthen defenses of its state border. Thus, it is a reasonable step to allocate more funding for the border intelligence that is a part of the Border Guard Service.