IMF team to assess Ukraine energy needs
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is planning to send a team to Ukraine to determine how much extra aid the energy-starved country would need during the upcoming winter.
The IMF said on Saturday that a nine-day visit by its delegates will begin on Tuesday amid continuing blackouts and growing anger over harsh IMF-prescribed austerity measures in Ukraine.
According to the IMF’s Kyiv representative, Jerome Vacher, the mission will start “policy discussions with the Ukrainian authorities in the context of the Fund-supported economic reform program.”
The IMF has helped collect a USD 27-billion (22-billion-euro) global rescue package for Ukraine after the February ouster of former president, Viktor Yanukovych.
However, it has since said Kyiv might require at least USD 19 billion in additional assistance if clashes with pro-Russians in the east drag on through the end of 2015.
The IMF is slated to mete out a USD 2.7-billion payment that comes on top of a USD-4.6-billion delivered by early September.
Ukraine’s foreign currency and gold reserves fell to less than USD 10 billion in November for the first time in almost a decade due to the fighting, which has led to the closure of factories in the east and left the rest of the country short of the coal needed to generate electricity.
Kyiv was about to purchase 100 million tons of coal from South Africa to make up for the shortfall. However, the deal collapsed this week due to graft charges that led to the arrest of the head of Ukraine’s main state energy firm.
This is while the IMF aid has helped Ukraine settle its debts to Russia to resume the flow of natural gas within a matter of days. Moscow had halted gas deliveries to Kyiv in June because of a price quarrel.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russia forces and the Ukrainian army since Kyiv launched military operations to silence the pro-Moscow protests in mid-April.
MR/KA/SS