Ukraine budget lost about $30 bln in 2013 due to corruption - minister

Ukraine's state budget for 2013 lost about 300 billion hryvni (around $30 billion) due to corruption, said Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko.

"Those were the allocations made and subsequently stolen, which pushed the country to the brink of a default," Petrenko told Drago Kos, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Working Group on Bribery, according to the Justice Ministry's press service.

Petrenko also said that the campaign to combat corruption ranks among the Ukrainian government's top priorities, the press service said.

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