The Pension Fund improved the system for recording pensioners who went abroad: the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber were implemented.
The process of managing funds from international donors provided for the payment of pensions to Ukrainians has been improved, the procedure for working with documents of pensioners who have left abroad has been regulated, and certain measures have been taken to terminate pension payments to their illegal recipients.
These are the results of the implementation of the recommendations (document 1, document 2) of the Accounting Chamber, which were provided based on the conclusions of the audit efficiency and the topic «Sustainability of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in under martial law». The audit covered 2022 – the first quarter of 2024 (and on certain issues – a longer period of time).
As a reminder, based on the results of this control measure, the auditors noted that under martial law, the Government was still able to ensure stable and timely payment of pensions in the established amounts and to persons entitled to them. Also, funds from international donors (the REACE Project),in particular the US Government, were used in accordance with the terms of the agreements, and control over their targeted spending was appropriate.
However, a number of shortcomings were identified. In particular, the reports for reimbursement under the REACE Project unreasonably included expenses for the payment of old-age, disability, and survivor pensions to recipients who were related to military service. This amount was insignificant (0.1% of the amounts submitted for reimbursement). However, as of now, in order to increase the transparency of the use of funds, the Ministry of Finance has initiated amendments to the rules for compiling passports of budget programs, making these passports mandatory for programs related to pension provision.
Gap and conflicts were also identified in the legislation regulating pension provision for persons with disabilities, military pensioners, and pensioners living in radioactive contamination zones/mountainous areas. Thus, the PFU spent at least UAH 4 billion per year on paying pensions to persons with disabilities whose mandatory re-examination by the MSEC was postponed during martial law. In accordance with the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution that canceled the postponement of the re-examination of persons with disabilities, established new deadlines for the re-examination, and determined the list of persons who cannot be sent for an assessment of daily functioning.
Another problem identified by the audit was the registration of a large number of pensioners at one address (from 6 to 30 people) in radioactive contamination zones and mountainous areas, which provides for receiving additional payments. Thus, after the judicial restoration in 2018 of the norms of the legislation in force until January 1, 2015, which provided for increased payments for non-working pensioners living in radioactive contamination zones, expenditures for additional payments to their pensions over the next three years increased from UAH 204.4 million to UAH 11.1 billion. Most of such additional payments were assigned by court decision. At the same time, the list of contaminated territories has not been reviewed for over 30 years.
In accordance with the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber in order to solve the problem of mass registration in the territories of radioactive contamination, the Government adopted a resolution, which determined from the beginning of the year a list of circumstances for receiving a pension increase. Among them, confirmation by the bodies of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in the state registers of the fact of residence in such zones without changing the place of residence after 01.01.1993 and the presence of the status of a person affected by the Chernobyl disaster. And the PFU, in turn, began checks of pension recipients who live en masse at one address.
This resolution also excluded the norm on establishing fixed amounts of pension increases for non-working pensioners living in the territories of radioactive contamination, provided for in Article 39 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chernobyl Disaster". This norm gave rise to numerous lawsuits by citizens against the Pension Fund of Ukraine.
At the same time, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, together with the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management, developed a procedure for dosimetric certification of settlements that were exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the Chernobyl disaster (the draft resolution will be sent for consideration to the interested bodies).
At the same time, The Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine did not support the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber to develop amendments to the legislation on determining the term of permanent residence in mountain settlements, reviewing the criteria for classifying these settlements as mountain, and updating the relevant list of settlements. However The Law of Ukraine “On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025” The Cabinet of Ministers was instructed to take appropriate measures.
It is important that in order to improve the system of identification of pensioners in wartime conditions, the PFU ensured the transition to automated processing of documents of pension recipients who left for permanent residence abroad in an automated electronic document management system, and also introduced the registration and storage in electronic form of applications for certification of the fact of a person's presence among the living.
The Accounting Chamber continues to monitor the status of implementation of the recommendations provided and will inform the public about this.