Sins of Klitschko and Co.: what the Temporary Special Commission of the Verkhovna Rada should pay attention to

The Verkhovna Rada has created a Temporary Special Commission to investigatethe e ffectiveness of public authorities in Kyiv as the capital of Ukraine during martial law. This decision was announced by Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak on his telegram channel.

The adoption of the relevant resolution by the Verkhovna Rada was supported by 252 MPs.

What the resolution says

Resolution №10460 proposes to define the main tasks of the Temporary Special Commission as follows:

1) studying the current issues of strategic development of Kyiv as the capital of Ukraine, including the state of development of the transport and urban planning model, establishment of the city's boundaries, approval of the General Plan, restoration of the housing stock, functioning of the city's critical infrastructure,
plans for their restoration and development, including in the context of meeting the needs of the unified state civil protection system of Ukraine during martial law;

2) conducting an analysis of problems and shortcomings in the management of the city of Kyiv in the performance of capital functions during martial law;

3) conducting an analysis of information published in the media and other sources on irrational and inefficient use of budget funds during public procurement;

4) collecting and analyzing information, in particular, from representatives of enterprises, institutions and organizations regardless of their form of ownership, officials and employees, citizens, on decisions, actions or inaction of local self- government bodies and local executive authorities in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine,
regarding the security and minimization of risks to the civilian population during martial law;

5) preparing proposals for improving the legislation of Ukraine to ensure effective governance in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

During the last time, "Active Citizens" raised many issues that the Temporary Special Commission of the Verkhovna Rada is now ready to consider. We would like to provide some examples on the topics outlined in the adopted Resolution No. 10460.

Illegal decisions

Editor-in-chief of the website of the "Rusanivka Neighborhood Committee" and a representative of this self-management body in Kyiv, Oleksandr Chunaev, informed that Kyiv city deputies and the head of the Kyiv City Council violated the current legislation on self-organization of the population in 2023. This may be the beginning of a procedure to liquidate previously established self-organized communities to create new ones more controlled by the Kyiv authorities. Read more in the publication «Kyiv City Council Suspected of Violating the Law on Self-Organization of the Population».

Oleksandr Chunayev in his commentary on Facebook noted that there were problems in the functioning of the Kyiv authorities before, but they became systemic after the election of Vitali Klitschko as mayor in 2014 and they especially hit the system of self-organization of the population (SOP) in 2023.

«Essentially, the Kyiv City Council usurped the functions of the Ukrainian parliament in violation of the Constitution of Ukraine (Article 5, Part 4) and, in pursuance of the illegal decisions of the Kyiv City Council in this area, self-organized bodies (SOBs) have been forced to hold their conferences of residents at their place of residence according to their different procedure since November 1, 2023. Nowadays, this situation is a painful topic in our activities, and the apparatus of the Kyiv City Council Secretariat is faithfully implementing these decisions of the Kyiv City Council. The result of such activities of the deputies and the Kyiv City Council Secretariat is that the functioning of the system of self-organization of the population now takes place outside the current legislation and the self-organized communities are forced to violate their Regulations registered in accordance with the established procedure. By the way, these Regulations are part of the legislation on them, and we have a violation of the Law of Ukraine «On Self-Organization Bodies» (Article 4 of this law) in this part. The principle of such actions should be the same for all its participants, and the public authorities have
successfully coped with the implementation of this principle in the interests of the city bureaucracy. That's why I personally welcome the creation of this Temporary Investigation Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and maybe it will help the self-organized communities to return to the usual legal framework», —
Chunaev wrote.

Another question on this topic, which «Active Citizens» has raised repeatedly, is the liquidation of the Municipal Enterprise «European Cultural Center Krakow».

Read more: The scheme of how under Klitschko Kyiv lost another cultural center – the European Cultural Center Krakow

An analysis of the roll-call vote last year by the deputies of the Kyiv City Council of the IX convocation for the liquidation of 4 municipal cultural enterprises, including the European Cultural Center Krakow, revealed a suspicious coincidence between the number of those who took part in the vote and the number of those who were «FOR». If the number of votes against and abstentions were added to this number, the number of people present in the hall should have been higher than it was in the official results of the Kyiv City Council vote.

«In general, it turns out to be strange arithmetic – according to the official results, in both cases the number of those who took part in the chairmanship coincided with the number of votes «FOR». Not only according to arithmetic, but even according to common sense, this cannot be. The results of the «did not vote» probably indicate that the deputy did not want to reveal his personal position in resolving the relevant issue when voting for it», – wrote Chunaev on this occasion.

Read more: The roll-call vote of the Kyiv City Council «For» the liquidation of the «ECC Krakow» indicates signs of falsification of the results

Magicians from Kyivkinofilm/Kyivkultcluster: How Kyiv’s cinemas disappear on paper

Failure with bomb shelters

Kyiv approached the third year of the full-scale war with Russia with the problem of bomb shelters still in place. It was only after the tragedy of June 1, 2023, when a missile strike killed three people, including a child, near a closed air raid shelter that the city authorities began to decide whether to allow all Kyiv residents to enter the available air raid shelters. But no political conclusions were drawn at the time.

Kyiv residents are creating petitions, seeking justice for the tragedy on June 1st.

After that tragedy, local authorities began spending huge sums of money on arranging bomb shelters in basements and sometimes in rooms that are not suitable for bomb shelters, but money continues to be spent on their repair. For example, in the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, shelters were set up in the warehouses of vegetable storage facilities, where even the floor beams are technically unsuitable to withstand any kind of impact.

The notorious Department of Education of the Dnipro District State Administration spent more than 400,000 UAH on such a shelter and passed an act that it could be used for the needs of a simple shelter.

Currently, the Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office is reporting more and more frequently on abuses by Kyiv officials in the construction of bomb shelters, which suggests that officials are using an important issue for society solely for their own gain. From the latest: On February 19, 2024, the prosecutor’s office announced on Facebook that the repair of a shelter in the Desnianskyi district of the capital had caused more than 870 thousand hryvnias in damage. The head of the physical health center at the Desnianskyi District State Administration was notified of suspicion of negligence, which led to serious consequences in the use of budget funds allocated for the reconstruction of the shelter.

Perhaps the whole world has heard the story about the purchase of vegetable cutters and drums for bomb shelters by the Department of Education of the Dniprovskyi District State Administration in Kyiv.

Read on: Tenders for vegetable cutters and drums were issued by the former director of the municipal enterprise «Shelter for Animals», who was dismissed by animal rights activists

After a wave of outrage over this situation, the prosecutor’s office calculated the damage caused by the suspect’s actions. As a reminder, law enforcement agencies believe that Olga Drozdova, the head of the administrative and economic department of the Dnipro District State Administration’s Education Department, was the main person involved in the fraud under the guise of the needs of the bomb shelter. Investigators found that:

• during the purchase of chairs for shelters for educational institutions in Dniprovskyi district, losses of about 1.3 million UAH were inflicted.
• during the purchase of vegetable cutters for catering establishments in the shelters, the amount of damage, according to investigators, is about 460 thousand UAH.

Questionable expenses instead of drones

For almost six months now, every Saturday, concerned Kyivites have been protesting in front of the Kyiv City Council and Kyiv City State Administration to stop spending budget funds — taxpayers’ money — on projects that are unnecessary during the war.

Read: Ukrainians demand that the government prohibit the allocation of funds for non-military expenditures

But the authorities do not hear them. At the request of the «Active Citizens» agency, we received a budget project for 2024 from the Department of Tourism and Promotion of the executive body of the Kyiv City Council, which envisaged spending 14.357 million UAH on tourism and promotion this year. The submitted documents, for example, state that revenues for the implementation of the budget program for 2022-2024 have increased. It has increased tenfold (!) compared to the non-war year of 2022 – from 4.685 million UAH to 18.9 million UAH this year and 14.357 million UAH next year.

Transport collapse

The topic that has affected every citizen of Kyiv is the emergency condition of the bridges and the closure of the metro stations from Demiivska to Teremky. The closure was supposed to last for six months, but experts are already talking about a delay. The reason for this was the flooding of the subway tracks due to a breach in the tunnel’s sealing. But there are many questions, including what caused the tunnel's sealing to be broken, how long it has been happening, and how much money will be spent on repairs during the difficult stage of the war, which is now entering its third year.

A separate topic is the condition of bridges in Kyiv. According to Oleh Popenko, an expert on housing and urban infrastructure, the most popular bridges in the capital are in a terrible state – the Paton Bridge and the South Bridge. According to the expert, the Paton Bridge is in a catastrophic state. This is evidenced, among other things, by the restrictions that have been in place for several years, as well as the constant accidents of the heating main located under the bridge. And the Kyiv City State Administration has no plan for major repairs with appropriate deadlines.

On weekdays in the morning, the traffic jam to the Patona bridge stretches for 3-4 km

In fact, many questions have accumulated to Klitschko, who has been running the capital for ten years. Therefore, we can say that the results of the work of the Temporary Special Commission to investigate the effectiveness of public authorities in Kyiv as the capital of Ukraine during martial law will be eagerly awaited by Kyiv citizens.