Budget 2025: State Fund for Regional Development returns with billion in funding
Kyiv • UNN
The draft State Budget 2025 envisages the restoration of the State Fund for Regional Development with funding of UAH 1 billion. The funds are to be distributed through participatory budgeting in large cities.
The draft state budget for 2025 provides for the return of the UAH 1 billion State Fund for Regional Development, said Vitaliy Bezgin, MP, chairman of the subcommittee on administrative-territorial structure and local self-government of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, UNN reports.
Details
"The SFRD is coming back. The draft Budget-2025 for the second reading provides for the return of the fund. Test in the amount of UAH 1 billion," MP Bezghin said on Facebook.
He pointed out that this is a "joint position, amendments and advocacy" of the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, the relevant parliamentary committee, and the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Oleksandr Kornienko.
"We thank the government for listening to us. The next step will be to amend the Budget Code to return the fund to the status of an instrument," Bezghin said.
In response to comment about the hope that "MPs and heads of RMAs will not distribute funds manually," Bezgin assured that "now the participation budget will be distributed to large cities, and everything will be fine.
Addendum
The SFRD is called the largest source of competitive budget financing for the implementation of regional development projects, although the effectiveness of the fund's use has been questioned due to significant political influence at the local, regional and national levels.
