A critically-needed tranche of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan for Ukraine to pay its gas bill to Russia is "in jeopardy," a government official told the Interfax news agency Today, according to dpa. The Ukrainian government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has failed to provide the IMF with updated budget deficit and GDP data, making any more credit from the fund impossible, an unnamed senior administration official told the Ukrainian news agency. Tymoshenko is locked in a political battle with President Viktor Yushchenko, who has criticised her in the past for delaying publication of or even fudging economic data, to assist her bid to win an upcoming Presidential election early next year. The Yushchenko administration frequently criticises the Tymoshenko government via leaks to national media. An IMF internal memo obtained by Interfax says the Tymoshenko government was in particular dragging its feet on providing the IMF detailed information on the finances of Naftogaz Ukrainy, a state- owned gas import and transportation monopoly. The lack of recent Ukrainian macroeconomic data to the IMF "placed in jeopardy" further tranches of an emergency 16.5 billion loan programme initiated by the Fund in November, with half of the credits yet to be paid out. A June 24 visit by IMF staff to Ukraine will not take place and thus prevent the fund from issuing any more money if Ukraine's government were to continue its tardiness on economic information, according to the report. According to Urkainian media reports, Naftogaz's finances are already are a approximately a half billion dollars in arrears due to mismanagement and a Tymoshenko government policy of price caps on domestic gas prices.
