KIEV, May 22 – The release of a $3 billion loan to Ukraine from the International Monetary Fund may be in jeopardy due to the government’s attempts to conceal vital economic data, President Viktor Yushchenko’s office warned Friday.

Ukraine needs the IMF loans to avoid default on foreign debts as the country’s foreign exchange reserves have dwindled dramatically since the start of the crisis last year.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s government recently postponed publication of the country’s first-quarter economic data until late June, leaving analysts and business leaders guessing on the depth of the economic crisis.

“The IMF has expressed concern over the [delayed] release of the statistics and over the announcement the data may further be postponed,” Roman Zhukovskiy, the head of the economic department at the Yushchenko office, said.

The IMF released $2.8 billion installment to Ukraine earlier this month and said it would consider releasing another $3 billion after June 15, following completion of a scheduled program review.

Ukraine’s economy probably contracted 20% on the year in the first quarter, analysts said. The release of the bad economic news may hurt Tymoshenko politically ahead of the next presidential election due in January 2010.

The government’s decision to postpone the vital economic data increases fears among businesses that Ukraine may appear to be hit by the crisis worse then has been previously thought.

Meanwhile, as pressure grows on the government to disclose the economic data, the government has been fiercely opposing the idea and has recently approved at least two “special” orders that effectively classify all economic data.

One such order - approved on May 20 - directly prohibits release of all economic and trade statistics by any executive office or a state company without prior clearance from the government.

While another order - approved on April 15 - bans ministers and heads of state agencies, including the State Statistics Committee, from releasing data without clearance from the prime minister or the first deputy prime minister.

That makes Tymoshenko and her closest party ally, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov, the only two people in Ukraine that are briefed to full extent on the depth of economic crisis.

The orders also prohibit the government and agencies from sharing economic and financial data with the office of the president, Oleksandr Shlapak, the first deputy chief of staff at the Yushchenko office, said.

When the presidential office complained it had stopped receiving updates from the finance ministry last month, the government had replied its computer network had been attacked by an unknown virus, making data sharing impossible.

Meanwhile, Tymoshenko has been making conflicting statements about the state of economy.

At the meeting with business leaders on Thursday in Kiev, she said the economy was in a “stabilization” mode after a major slump earlier this year. She also predicted Ukraine may start recovering as soon as in four months.

But the next day, after a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday, Tymoshenko admitted that Russia and Ukraine will continue to deal with the crisis in 2009 and in 2010.

“Although there is some optimism, we still believe that 2009 and 2010 will be the crisis years and our countries must be ready for this,” Tymoshenko said in a joint appearance with Putin.

Yushchenko, Tymoshenko’s political rival, has been preparing to take a legal action to stop the government’s secrecy regulations, Shlapak said.

The regulations, which Shlapak called the “economic censorship,” make harder if not impossible the process of decision-making in Ukraine, and must be reversed.

“We believe that any government decision restricting [the release of information] has nothing to do with the policy of openness and is a breeding ground for such phenomena as corruption,” he said. (tl/ez)