The test for the government is whether officials will be able to get two agricultural holdings to repair the road they are destroying with their vehicles
Kyiv • UNN
A collective appeal from residents of Komarivka village, Nizhyn district, demands that the Chernihiv Regional Military Administration allocate funds to repair the road between Sydorivka and Komarivka, which is being destroyed by the machinery of Kernel and Ukrainian Dairy Company.
The Chernihiv Regional Military Administration is already aware of the situation with the broken road in Nizhyn district, where an ambulance barely got an elderly woman with a stroke to the hospital. So, there is hope that they will try to solve the problem in the near future and repair the road. However, the question remains whether the authorities will be able to involve Kernel and Ukrainian Dairy Company in this process, as local residents blame them for the destruction of the road, UNN reports .
Details
The desperate people saw no other way out, so they wrote a collective appeal to the Chernihiv RMA demanding to allocate funds to repair the road between the settlements of Sydorivka and Komarivka. The officials, as we have already written, received the letter and sent it to the institution responsible for this road.
On 17.06.2024, the Chernihiv Regional State Administration received a collective appeal from residents of Komarivka village, Nizhyn district, requesting the allocation of funds for repair work on the T-25-52 Borzna - Komarivka - M-02 road, which is on the balance sheet of the Infrastructure Restoration and Development Service in Chernihiv region. The letter of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration dated 17.06.2024 No. 11-04/9664-v was sent to the Service for Infrastructure Restoration and Development in Chernihiv Oblast,
The fact that RMA is already aware of the problem is good. At least they will somehow keep the situation under control. But it is clear that the road will not be repaired by itself. For this purpose, it is necessary to find funds and resources.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that Chernihiv region is a frontline region. And the same RMA notes that some of the roads were damaged by heavy military equipment.
And this is where the question arises - whether the government will be able to encourage big business to be socially responsible and contribute to solving the problems of local communities in this difficult time. Ukrainian Milk Company and Kernel do not seem to be considering their participation in the road repair, and are shifting the responsibility to the government.
Kernel has a similar position.
"The agricultural enterprises of our company are located in the mentioned regions and, accordingly, vehicles travel between them to carry out business activities. The trucks move in compliance with the standards of permissible load on the road surface. The condition of local roads, as well as assessing the need for their repair, is the responsibility of local authorities and relevant bodies," the holding said in response to our inquiry.
And this is despite the fact that Ukraine has positive examples of business involvement in co-financing local road repairs. In particular, according to Ihor Murdiy, a member of the Verkhovna Rada's Transport Committee, last year Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions managed to raise more than UAH 100 million for this purpose.
"It's certainly not a bad thing when people contribute their own money. In fact, last year, in different regions of the country, this was very well implemented, when agricultural enterprises and local communities were involved in financing the repair of local roads. For example, in the Kirovohrad region, about 50 million hryvnias were raised throughout the region, in the Cherkasy region - about 55 million," the MP said in a commentary to UNN.
So, against this background, I wonder if the Chernihiv RMA will have convincing arguments to involve the companies that are destroying the road with their heavy vehicles in the repair of the road. Instead of spending only public funds for these purposes.
