The current government should work out and implement all necessary solutions to provide local budgets with a resource for the purchase of natural gas as the main and now expensive fuel for the heating season 2021-2022.
The corresponding statement was made by the leader of the Ukrainian Strategy party Volodymyr Groysman in an official letter addressed to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
“We demand decisive action by the government and quick decisions on providing subventions from the state budget to local budgets for the purchase of natural gas for the heating season, in particular, providing heat to schools, kindergartens, hospitals, etc.,” Volodymyr Groysman said in a letter.
As the politician said, a few weeks before the start of the heating season, the situation on the ground is unacceptable: the price of gas reaches Hr 18,000-20,000 per 1,000 cubic meters and continues to grow. And this creates a critical tension in local budgets, in connection with which the heating season “may be disrupted.”
“Let me remind you that the main idea of decentralization reform is the transfer of powers and finances from state authorities to local governments. And, indeed, at the first stage of the reform, thanks to the implemented financial decentralization, local budgets have grown more than four times! From Hr 68.6 billion in 2014 to Hr 275 billion in 2019. At the same time, the situation has changed radically in the last two years – the state is actively transferring powers to local self-government, but never during this time without revising the structure of the revenue base of local government budgets.”
That is why, Volodymyr Groysman said, a further systematic step that will correct the situation is the immediate amendment of the Budget Code of Ukraine in order to increase (up to 75%) the share of personal income tax, which is credited to local budgets.
“Some 60% of personal income tax, which is now included in such budgets, is already an insufficient source of expenditures that are determined by the functions of the state and transferred to local government for execution,” Groysman said.
