KYIV, April 14 – A flood of amendments will probably delay for weeks the approval of a key legislation that is required for the International Monetary Fund to resume lending to Ukraine, a senior lawmaker said Tuesday.

The banking bill, which received more than 16,000 amendments last week from lawmakers opposing the deal with the IMF, is a key condition for Ukraine to win up to $9.5 billion in lending.

David Arakhamia, the leader of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party in Parliament, said Ukraine must approve the bill no later than May 5 in order to get the IMF lending by the end of May.

“If the bill is delayed beyond that, the entire country will have a problem,” Arakhamia said, adding that Ukraine is due to make massive foreign debt payments at the end of May and relies on the IMF support.

The bill, which was approved in the first reading on March 30, seeks to prevent former owners of banks that were nationalized or liquidated in recent years from regaining ownership rights or receiving monetary compensation.

Analysts said the bill’s main purpose was to prevent one of Ukraine's most-powerful tycoons, billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskiy, the former co-owner of PrivatBank, from regaining ownership rights to the bank.

Most of the lawmakers that submitted the amendments are believed to be loyal to Kolomoyskiy.

Meanwhile, Parliament will probably hold an emergency session on Thursday to try to change its regulations for reviewing amendments in order to make it possible to go through the in blocks to speed up the approval.

“The main issue is to change the law on regulations to combat the so-called 'terrorism-via-amendments' that has recently swept the entire Parliament,” Arakhamia said.

Ukraine has been desperately seeking to resume cooperation with the IMF in order to support the economy battered by falling prices of steel on world markets and by the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Ukraine and the IMF discussed $5.5 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan in December 2019, but the subsequent outbreak of coronavirus had increased the burden on the country with the government now seeking to expand the program to $9.5 billion.

Kolomoyskiy criticized the government for trying to “trade sovereignty and Constitution for 30 pieces of silver.” (tl/ez)