AFP, Kiev :
Ukraine said on Tuesday it was not hoping for fresh money from the International Monetary Fund this year, but said a payment delayed from 2015 should still come its way.
The announcement by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman signals the Fund’s lingering reservations about the corruption and legislative problems besetting the cash-strapped former Soviet state.
The IMF approved a new four-year $17.5-billion (15.4-billion-euro) bailout in 2015 that was part of a broader $40-billion global assistance package aimed at helping Ukraine’s leaders along on their new westward course.
But the graft and back-room dealings between powerful tycoons that was one of the irritants feeding Ukraine’s February 2014 pro-EU revolution continue to plague the country.
Groysman-a 38-yea-old protege of President Petro Poroshenko-became premier in April with a mission to resolve graft scandals that had led to the resignation of reformist officials and paralysed the government’s work.
An IMF mission that completed a visit to Kiev in May said it had “reached (a) staff level agreement with the authorities” that may be approved by Fund’s board in July.
