The parliamentary budget committee has agreed the provision of an additional Hr 1.5 billion for current repair and winter maintenance of roads and Hr 3.9 billion for light overhaul of roads, the State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine (Ukravtodor) has reported.
“Today the parliamentary budget committee approved the provision of an additional financing of Hr 5.4 billion to repair Ukrainian roads. I promise that these funds will be sent to repair the most damaged sections of roads and our ‘list of shame’ would be considerably narrowed: nine out of 10 roads declared by journalists and the public the worst would be financed additionally using these funds,” Ukravtodor head Yevhen Barakh has said.
Hr 1.5 billion will be provided from funds saved by the state via restructuring of bank credits (Sberbank of Russia, Citibank, N. A. London and Credit Swiss International) and Hr 3.9 billion from ending stocks of the government-secured funds raised in 2012 and 2013.
The committee lawmakers also decided to ask the government and Finance Ministry of Ukraine to provide an additional Hr 2.5 billion to repair roads. The state saved around Hr 5.5 billion via credit rescheduling, and it would be appropriate to increase financing by Hr 2.5 billion more.
The budget committee asked the Finance Ministry to accelerate informing Ukravtodor about the schedule to provide the allocated funds to the agency.
The committee also approved the earmarking of Hr 513 million to a debt to contractors for works carried out in the previous years. The funds will be paid to those companies that were checked by SBU and have court decisions.
“Thanks to these funds we would be able to solve a large problem – the blocking of accounts by courts in Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” Barakh said.
The committee decided that Ukravtodor is to inform lawmakers on the use of additional funds and monitor the effective use of the money by local agencies.
