The Kernel agricultural holding, which residents of Chernihiv Oblast accuse of destroying local roads with its heavy vehicles, shifts all responsibility for the poor state of the region's roads to local authorities. Instead, village heads and starostas argue that there is indeed a problem with the large-sized transport of farmers, which they use to destroy roads, UNN writes.
On the second attempt, Kernel finally responded to UNN's request regarding the accusations of residents of the Nizhyn district of Chernihiv region of involvement in the destruction of the road between the settlements of Sydorivka and Komarivka.
The agroholding does not see any fault in this, claiming that their vehicles do not violate weight standards, and that local authorities should monitor the condition of the roads.
Our company's agricultural enterprises are located in these regions and, accordingly, vehicles travel between them to carry out business activities. The trucks are driven in compliance with the permissible load on the road surface. The condition of local roads, as well as the assessment of the need for their repair, is the responsibility of local authorities and relevant bodies
In addition, the agricultural holding boasted that in 2023 it paid about UAH 200 million in taxes to all local budgets of Chernihiv region.
According to the State Tax Service of Chernihiv Oblast, in 2023, all taxpayers in the region, including the unified social tax, paid UAH 30.9 billion in taxes to budgets of all levels. Against this background, 200 million from Kernel does not look like an exorbitant amount.
The agricultural holding's attempts to hide behind its taxes and shift all responsibility to local authorities in the midst of war look particularly cynical.
As it turned out, this is a problem not only for residents of Sydorivka and Komarivka who complain about Kernel, but also for many communities in Chernihiv Oblast.
"Yes, our farmers are damaging the roads. They get impudent and carry not 25 but 60 tons on public roads. But you know, everything is learned by comparison. When our community was under occupation and I saw the Russians driving by and "killing" our road, I thought it was better to let our Ukrainian grain trucks go on this road, let them go overloaded, but let our economy work and there will be peace. That's what I thought in 2022. And now I, as a resident of Komarivka, say that they are "killing" (agrarians - ed.) the road.
This issue should be resolved at the state level: there is the police, Ukrtransbezpeka, and the Recovery Agency. And community leaders are, to some extent, hostages of this situation," Valentyn Boyko, head of the Dmytrivska village community, told UNN .
The worst thing about this situation is that, as it turns out, it is not uncommon for Chernihiv Oblast to have ambulances unable to transport patients to hospitals on broken roads, and people die.
It was on the stretch of road between Sydorivka and Komarivka that an ambulance spent a lot of precious time transporting an elderly woman with a stroke to a hospital in Nizhyn. A few days later, the patient died in the hospital.
According to the head of Dmytrivske village, there have been similar tragic cases in their community.
"We have no road to Bakhmach at all, and the ambulance doesn't get there in time, and there have been two cases of this happening and people dying. In February, my friend had a stroke. "The ambulance arrived and said we wouldn't take him because we couldn't take him on this road. They didn't take him, he got worse. They came again, took him away, and he died the next day," Boyko said.
The paradox of the situation is that until recently, there were decent agricultural companies in the Nizhyn district that repaired the roads used by their large vehicles at their own expense.
The Dmytrivska community includes the village of Holinka, which in 2021 was at the epicenter of a scandal in which Kernel was directly involved.
For many years, the land near this village was cultivated by the Agrodom agricultural enterprise.
In 2019, Agrodom and Kernel entered into a loan security agreement. In 2020, after the tragic death of Agrodom's owner, MP Valeriy Davydenko, control over 76% of the company was transferred to entities and individuals associated with Kernel.
According to the deceased's mother, Valentyna Davydenko, the agroholding's lawyers used the agreement to take over the company in a hostile takeover. In addition, according to the woman, the holding appropriated all of Agrodom's harvest.
At the end of May 2021, a clone company of Agrodom LLC (with a dot at the end) was registered with a penny authorized capital. Peasant shareholders were allegedly offered to sign contracts with the new company due to improved conditions. However, the documents signed by the people were immediately taken away from them, allegedly to be authorized by the management.
After a while, people began to resent and suspect that they were being taken away from their property.
At the same time, Valentyna Davydenko openly accused Kernel of raiding the land of shareholders.
According to Natalia Vernyhora, the head of Holinka, the situation in the village is calm. But what is interesting is that the old Agrodom, according to the starosta, used to repair the roads that their vehicles used every year.
"We've had it since Davydenko and his Agrodom company came to us, and they became tenants in 2007. Yes, they used to drive heavy machinery, but at that time they repaired it every season at their own expense. The taxes they paid were also allocated for this purpose. Holinka had the best roads, we had asphalt everywhere, and we were used to the fact that the roads were regularly repaired seasonally. Yes, the transport was heavy, and there were inconveniences, and there were times when the houses shook. But all our issues were resolved: they broke it, they repaired it. Now the roads are no longer repaired in this way, but they (the new Agrodom - ed.) are helping in other ways," Natalia Vernyhora said.
In other words, if a business is socially responsible, it is not a problem to repair several kilometers of roads.
It's a matter of basic respect not only for people, but even for the land you work on. And, apparently, Kernel does not have this respect...