Would you like to receive $8-10 thousand from the state for education, medical treatment or an apartment? It sounds tempting, but it's not that simple. After all, economic and corruption threats lurk beneath the beautiful promises

The Verkhovna Rada has registered draft law No. 6394 ‘On Economic Passport’. The authors propose to create a state Fund for Future Generations, which will be replenished with revenues from mining royalties. Starting in 2037, the Fund will pay 18-year-old Ukrainians a one-off sum of about $8-10,000 for education, medical treatment or an apartment.

However, we found a number of corruption risks in this document:

• There are no clear criteria for remuneration of the Fund's employees. This contributes to inefficient and non-transparent spending of budget funds.
• The officials and members of the Fund's Board will not be subject to the provisions of the Law ‘On Prevention of Corruption’.
• There is no transparent mechanism for decision-making by the collegial body of the Fund's asset management company on the investment of the Fund's assets.

In addition, according to the Centre for Economic Strategy, budgetary expenditures in the form of contributions to the Fund could amount to about 1% of GDP per year in 2030, which is about one third of the budget deficit that is considered safe (about 3% of GDP), about one tenth of the Pension Fund's expenditures, or one third of defence spending today.

In addition, the lion's share of the subsoil rent is used to finance socially important expenditures: education, healthcare, assistance to low-income families, expenditures of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, etc. Redirecting it to other purposes means reducing the financial resources available to cover these needs.

The Institute joins the statement of more than 10 NGOs and calls on MPs not to adopt this draft law.

The full text of the appeal is available here.