According to MPs Halyna Tretyakova and Oleksandra Ustinova, the draft resolution to reduce the number of employees of the Secretariat and, accordingly, minimise salaries was signed by almost 100 MPs, and now 13 signatures have physically disappeared, Babel reports.
MPs Halyna Tretyakova from the Servant of the People party and Oleksandra Ustinova from the Voice faction accused the Verkhovna Rada of hacking into the parliament's electronic system, which is a crime.
On social media, the MPs pointed out that the system had registered a draft resolution to reduce the number of employees of the Secretariat (currently 1,150) and, accordingly, to minimise their salaries.
Almost 100 MPs signed the draft, but 13 signatures have physically disappeared. According to Ustinova, only representatives of the Secretariat can "take away" the signatures, as MPs do not have access to the system.
Tretyakova claims that there are currently 200 empty positions in the Secretariat, which were used to pay exorbitant bonuses to others.
"For your understanding, the salary of the head of the secretariat or deputy head is 1.2-1.5 million hryvnyas, while the head of the committee and MPs receive 400-500 thousand per year. That is 40 thousand a month," Ustinova said.
Moreover, according to the MPs, after the staff of the Secretariat learned about the project, they began calling and intimidating MPs, and then manually removed the signatures. In particular, according to Tretyakova, the MPs are being threatened by the Chief of Staff of the Verkhovna Rada, Vyacheslav Shtuchnyy.
In turn, the parliament's website published a statement on the situation from the press service of the Verkhovna Rada's Secretariat. They stated that the resolution was registered by MP Tretyakova on 14 June, and by the time of registration, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada had received 13 statements from MPs of Ukraine requesting the withdrawal of their signatures under the draft resolution.
"The resolution was registered by the author [Tretyakova H.] on 14.06.2024. Even before registration, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine received 13 statements from MPs requesting the withdrawal of their signatures under the draft resolution.
"Since these statements were submitted by the MPs at the stage of the draft document's approval, i.e. before its registration, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine took the necessary measures to bring the list of signatories in line with the submitted statements of the MPs," the statement of the Verkhovna Rada's Secretariat reads.
It is worth noting that the 2024 budget of the Verkhovna Rada provides for budget funding for the Verkhovna Rada's Office of Affairs of UAH 2.95 billion, which is more than 300 million more than was envisaged for the previous year.