KYIV – The delay-plagued Pecherk metro station could be opened by late December — if the money to complete building work can be found, metro construction workers told top city and central government officials Friday July 25.
During an underground tour of the unfinished station with city administration chief Oleksandr Omelchenko, Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko was told that the station, although 90 percent complete, still needs to undergo millions of hryvnas worth of construction work before it can admit its first passengers.
Clutching a hard hat in his hand, Pustovoitenko promised that despite fund shortages, the Cabinet would find government money to complete construction work at the station.
According to Volodymyr Palchyk, deputy chief engineer at Kyivmetrobud, the enterprise constructing the station, another Hr 25.5 million ($13.7 million) is needed to open the station and buy rolling stock – and that is in addition to another Hr 20 million already earmarked for Pecherska from the city budget.
Work on Pechersk began before the Soviet collapse in 1991, but quickly stalled when the economic crisis began to bite in newly independent Ukraine. Funds were diverted to the building of metro stations in more densely populated areas of the Ukrainian capital, as metro management judged these would be more profitable when opened, said Palchyk.
Lack of funds is still a major problem, and Palchyk frankly admitted that he had no idea where the money to complete the station would come from.
Back in the dimly-lit station, Prime Minister Pustovoitenko said the government was seeking to cooperate with commercial banks to complete metro building projects in Kharkiv and Donetsk. But he could cast no light on how the funds to finish Pechersk would be squeezed from an already
