Million-Hryvnia Incomes: Which Heads of Verkhovna Rada Committee Secretariats Earned the Most?

09.05.2025

Heads of parliamentary committee secretariats earned millions in 2024. These sums were several times higher than the annual income of committee chairs.

The highest earner was Andrii Vatuliov, head of the Budget Committee’s secretariat — he received over UAH 1.8 million, about UAH 300,000 more than in the first year of the full-scale war.

By comparison, committee chair Roksolana Pidlasa (Servant of the People) earned just over UAH 700,000 that year.

These figures come from an analysis of 2024 asset declarations of committee chairs and secretariat heads in the Verkhovna Rada, conducted by the civic initiative “Holka.”

The earnings of the Verkhovna Rada’s Apparatus leadership are even higher. Viacheslav Shtuchnyi, Head of the Apparatus, received over UAH 3 million. In contrast, Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk earned just over UAH 1 million.

Parliament has passed amendments to the law “On Civil Service” through several draft bills, which are now awaiting the President’s consideration. Given that Ukraine is pursuing European integration and must reform its civil service, salaries in this sector should follow a single formula: 70% base salary and 30% bonuses.

How can the principle of “some are more equal than others” still exist under a new legal framework for the civil service?

Iryna Fedoriv

head of the civic initiative “Holka”

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Think about it: members of parliament set the rules for how their own administrative staff operates. Some politicians even admit they are blackmailed with travel bans if they don’t vote for these rules. So what’s really going on? And why should the judicial or executive branches be treated worse than the legislative?

But this isn’t the only issue that deserves attention. It's high time to introduce fair compensation for political positions. When the President earns just over UAH 300,000 during wartime, while the Head of the Parliament’s Apparatus gets over UAH 3 million — it raises serious questions. The populist slogan “politicians should have low salaries” is harmful to the state.

Let’s not forget former mayor Chernovetskyi, who was paid UAH 1, and how much we’re still spending in courts today to protect Kyiv’s historical heritage and green spaces.

We cannot allow distortions among branches of government if we are serious about democratic development. If rules for all civil servants are to be unified, then the parliamentary apparatus must not be an exception. And blackmail with travel bans is a stark indicator of the current state of parliamentarism in Ukraine.