Budget сommittee backs prosecutor pay raise despite calls to cut spending
Source: Yaroslav Zhelezniak/Telegram
The Budget Committee of Ukraine’s Parliament greenlit a 3-billion-hryvnia increase in salary funding for prosecutors in the 2025 state budget. The decision raised many eyebrows, and got a scathing reaction from senior MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who co-chairs the Tax and Customs Policy Committee. He claimed that the committee axed amendments that could prevent such pay rise.
According to Zhelezniak, the Budget Committee sided with the Justice Committee and Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Khomenko, who lobbied for the 37% salary boost while amendments from MPs Yaroslav Tsabal and Nina Yuzhanina got no support despite recommendations from a working group.
The salary boost vote saw 14 voting in favor of it, with four abstentions and one vote against. Committee chair Roksolana Pidlasa did not participate in the vote.
Zhelezniak wryly called it a very ‘timely’ decision. “Now is definitely the best time to raise prosecutor salaries,” said the lawmaker, in an obvious reference to the latest scandal with prosecutors in Khmelnytskyi office, where they obtained disability certificates to claim hefty benefits and medical exemptions from the military service.
Meanwhile, opposition MP Nina Yuzhanina said that lawmakers earmarked a total of 13.3 billion hryvnias for prosecutor salaries in 2025, which is a a 25% increase compared to 2024. She also claimed that the salary boost has been lobbied by the Law Enforcement Committee
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