Head of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev criticized low effectiveness of the “National Cashback” program. According to him, the Ministry of Economy made public the results of the implementation of the program, which turned out to be disappointing.
Hetmantsev explained that 714 million hryvnias of cashback, the accumulation of which began back in December and ended at the end of January, should have been paid back in the third decade of February.
“But something went wrong: the funds started arriving on citizens’ cards only from last Friday (March 7), although the payments were in the status of ‘in processing’ since February 18.”, he noted.
The second problem, according to the deputy, was the limited circle of recipients of funds:
“Questions arise regarding the number of people whom the Ministry of Economy calls “active users” of the Natskeshbek program. At the beginning of January, there were 4.5 million of them, at the beginning of February – more than 5 million, and only 3.4 million citizens received payments for December and January expenses. The difference indicates either the incorrect use of the term “active users of the program” or an error in calculations.”
The third problem was too small amounts of payments.
“If you divide 714 million hryvnias by the number of recipients, you get an average of 105 hryvnias per month, which is not enough even for a cheap monthly package of mobile communications”, – stated Hetmantsev.
The fourth factor is the discrepancy between the accrued and paid amounts.
“In the ministry’s information, there is no explanation regarding the difference between the paid and accrued amount. Thus, according to the Ministry of Economy itself, Ukrainians accumulated 436 million hryvnias in December, and 414 million hryvnias in January. That is, a total of 850 million hryvnias, which is significantly more than the paid amount of 714 million hryvnias.” Hetmantsev stressed.
The deputy named the limited scope of the program as the fifth problem:
“From the beginning of the program, from September 2024 to January 2025, only 1.1 billion hryvnias were transferred to citizens. Although it was planned to spend 3 billion hryvnias on the program in 2024 alone. However, due to the low interest of consumers, the funds were not used. Considering that for six months, an average of less than 200 million hryvnias per month was paid out, this program obviously did not become a serious support for development of the economy, as announced by the authors”.
