The Verkhovna Rada is proposing to provide businesses with the option of booking employees in exchange for providing services to the military. The idea arose from discussions between MPs and the military, said Dmytro Natalukha, chairman of the parliamentary economic committee, on the sidelines of parliament.
One version of the proposed economic reservation involves booking employees in exchange for a fixed amount of UAH 20,000 paid by the business. But if a business does not have these funds, there is an initiative to replace them with services.
"Imagine you have a service station. And this service station cannot pay UAH 20,000 for one employee per month. But it is in demand among the military. Then we introduce the category of economic mobilisation," said Natalukha.
That is, if such a service station wants to book four employees but cannot pay UAH 80,000, it must conclude an agreement with a team to provide free services within this amount per month.
That is, you don't have money or enough profit to book employees, but you have goods, work or services that are in demand among the military - provide them within the booking price," the MP explained.
Natalukha said that the MPs got this idea directly from workers at the frontline. Work is now underway to include the relevant provisions in the draft law on economic booking.
It is too early to say when this document might be considered by the committee, Natalukha added.
It should be noted that the idea of economic booking was criticised by the military, in particular by Masi Nayyem, whose post was addressed to Natalukha. In his post on Facebook, Nayyem wrote that the proposed economic reservation solves the lack of money at the expense of people at the front.
"So far, our partners are giving us money and weapons. We are still holding on to that. They do not give us people. And they will not give us people. That is, even if the government, the president, the Rada perform their functions perfectly - we will continue to have money and weapons - there will simply be no one to fight there," the soldier said.
Yaryna Chornohuz, a soldier who was also mentioned by Natalukha in his post, also criticised the proposed economic reservation.
"Let's be honest, this law is for civilians who do not want to fight because they believe they are the 'economic front', 'more useful in the rear', 'financing the army'. Instead of drafting bills that would increase the military fee, make it possible to identify and punish corrupt officials more effectively, and attract categories of people who are not subject to mobilisation to work at enterprises, you decided to introduce a system of legal redemption so that we could have a category of 'valuable economic frontline workers' who can live outside the war - and thus make all civilians and military personnel who are not booked by enterprises feel like serfs," Yaryna expressed her point of view.
- In June, a draft law on economic reservation was registered in parliament, which provides for a company to pay UAH 20,400 per month in exchange for the opportunity to reserve one employee from mobilisation. However, there are two other draft laws: one that allows reservations for salaries above UAH 36,336 and one that prescribes a mixed model: UAH 36,336 of salary for an employee and UAH 20,400 of military duty for a private entrepreneur.