The key challenges of today are the heating season, energy sector, security factor, education, healthcare, veteran support, social protection and local economy. This was stated by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal during a meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine held on August 20 in Kropyvnytsky.
Denys Shmyhal reminded that on the instructions of the President of Ukraine, ministerial teams together with ministers continued to work hard in the regions.
“Our primary task is not only to solve shared problems, but also to provide support to each specific region and each community,” the Prime Minister stressed.
According to the Head of Government, preparation for the winter remains a top priority. The repair campaign continues. About 10 different support programmes for people, businesses, condominiums and communities to install additional generation have already been launched.
“The task for every local leader is to ensure that there are hundreds and thousands of such projects to install additional generation,” said Denys Shmyhal.
The Prime Minister also reminded of the decisions already taken in the context of preparing the energy sector for winter. In particular, the list of facilities with priority power supply was expanded, a law on duty-free import of power equipment was adopted, blackout schedules were cancelled for consumers using at least 80% of their own electricity and programmes to install alternative energy in administrative buildings, hospitals and schools were intensified.
In addition, the work to attract investments in the construction of modern distributed generation continues. According to the Prime Minister, on August 15, Ukrenergo held the first competitive auction for the purchase of 100 MW of system balancing services to be provided by newly built power plants and energy storage systems.
“Within 12 months, Ukraine will have more than a gigawatt of the most demanded balancing capacities built by dozens of investors in the new Ukrainian generation. I call on the heads of communities to provide full assistance to such investors,” the Head of Government noted.
The second topic the Prime Minister focused on was the humanitarian component: education, healthcare and support for veterans.
He stressed that the strategic task of the state was to return as many children as possible to offline education.
“The key is the availability of shelters. Previously, UAH 2.5 billion was allocated for this purpose. Today, at the Government meeting, we increased this amount by an additional UAH 5 billion. We keep purchasing school buses, and today we have allocated an additional UAH 200 million for this purpose. We have developed and approved three options for arranging ground shelters, the so-called safe spaces. The communities have to implement them depending on the need and level of threats in the settlement and the region,” said Denys Shmyhal.
The Head of Government also focused on one of the components of the veterans’ policy – inclusiveness and barrier-free access.
“It is important that local authorities pay special attention to this issue. Each community should prioritise the issues of veterans’ policy and barrier-free accessibility,” the Prime Minister stressed.
The third topic discussed during the Congress was the effective management of available resources. The Head of Government stressed the need to strengthen cooperation in increasing the tax base of local budgets.
“One of the key steps is the inventory of agricultural land. 23% of land is not included in the cadastre. Today we are to sign a memorandum to speed up this process. This will be a joint effort of the centre and the regions,” said Denys Shmyhal.
According to the Prime Minister, the inclusion of all lands in the cadastre will bring potential additional annual revenues to local budgets in the amount of almost UAH 28 billion.
The Head of Government also focused on European integration. He said that the Government had decided that each regional administration would have a deputy responsible for European integration and international technical assistance.
“The EU is willing to invest in Ukrainian regions and support regional development projects. Therefore, it is crucial to have institutional capacity on the ground. This is linked directly to recovery projects. The practice of municipal and regional partnerships is part of our reconstruction. It was initiated by the President of Ukraine and has proved to be an excellent practice,” the Prime Minister said.
As Denys Shmyhal emphasised, international partners remained ready to finance high-quality local reconstruction projects and were willing to invest in Ukrainian communities. (Government portal)