“A lot of comments”: Hetmantsev said when the Verkhovna Rada may consider the first reading of the 2021 state budget

The Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev ("Servant of the People"), told this on the air of Ukraine 24 TV channel.

"Next week we won't consider the draft budget in the hall. It's most likely happening on October 20," Hetmantsev said.

The deputy noted that parliamentarians can send amendments to the draft budget until October 1, after that they'll submit the proper draft resolution with amendments to the session hall.

Hetmantsev predicts that the amendments will regard both the revenue and expenditure of the budget and "there will be a lot of them because the budget raises a very large number of questions."

"Undeniably, neither the party nor the Verkhovna Rada as a whole supports the current draft submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. There are a lot of comments coming from the mono-majority. So we'll work on it, and complete it to the form that we support it," the head of the committee said.

He also added that people's deputies want to learn from the government why the draft budget for 2021 doesn't foresee income from the sale of gambling licenses.

According to Hetmantsev, the calculations of the Ministry of Finance show that they expect 4.5 billion hryvnias a year from licenses. The Finance Committee calculated up to 7 billion hryvnias.

The other day, the first deputy head of the Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Yaroslav Zhelezniak ("Voice"), mentioned in a Telegram it's likely for the Rada to meet for an extraordinary meeting on October 20 to adopt the 2021 state budget in the first reading.

"By law, the first reading should take place in the committee by October 15 (and voting by the 20th), but since the Rada meets only on October 1-9, we will have to meet ad hoc," Zhelezniak wrote.