The Cabinet of Ministers bill on conducting administrative-territorial reform restricts the rights of local communities and is unacceptable, Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko has said.
“This bill, No. 9590, on associations of territorial communities, has been tabled in parliament by the Cabinet of Ministers. It gives us grounds to say that administrative reform cannot be conducted by such methods. The Communists have always brought government agencies closer to the people, while the power of capital, quite the contrary, is running away from people,” the party’s press service quoted him as saying at a press conference.
Symonenko said that such administrative-territorial reform, allegedly aimed at the simplification of administrative services, “is separating government from citizens.”
“As part of this reform, the number of territorial communities should be reduced from 31,000 to 1,800, with the number of districts expected to fall from 490 to 150,” he said.
He noted that a decline in the number of local communities would lead to a reduction in the number of first aid points and complicate the life of the citizens in getting the documents issues by district government agencies.
“Despite the misleading quantitative figures of a reduction in the number of government agencies, UAH 2.55 billion is envisaged [on them] in the state budget for 2012, while in 2011 these expenditures amounted to UAH 2.44 billion. That is, the financing of government agencies is only increasing,” Symonenko said.
