Source: Delo.ua
The “road money” will be spent directly on roads for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine. The Parliament voted at the first reading for the draft law on making amendments to the Law “On Sources of Road Industry Financing in Ukraine” to improve the mechanism of the road sector financing. Simply said, this legislative initiative implies establishing a special State Road Fund.
There are many jokes about the deplorable state of Ukrainian roads throughout the country (actually, we make them up ourselves, but nevertheless). However, the fact remains: 97% of our roads – with overdue minor and major repairs. You can easily ride only on 3% of roads and this is just about 5,000 of 170,000 kilometers.
Nevertheless, our country has developed a destructive and wrong tactics. On the one hand, the state imposed fees on motorists in the form of the same excise duty on gasoline, cars and component parts, and on the other hand – these funds are not used for roads. Only 15-20% of them have been allocated for road financing. The rest – to the total budget revenues and they are allocated by the Ministry of Finance as it considers. This situation is strange, unfair and abusive. Most car drivers believe that they paid to the state for roads and expect that at least they should be repaired with these funds. However, the truth is that the money from the total budget are spent on anything but roads. Who and how allocates the money is another question.
Therefore, a positive point number one: when the specialized Road Fund is established, it will keep records and control existing revenue items. And the government will not be able to redirect the money of car drivers for other purposes manually.
A positive point number two: according to preliminary estimates, the establishment of the Road Fund will increase the funding of Ukrainian roads approximately by 4 times. Accordingly, the repair rates of our road network will be improved significantly. And it will be possible to really say that every citizen of Ukraine will see the better quality roads already in 4-5 years.
Today, repair works are carried out, but they are occasional. For example, it is all the same for people living in Sumy or Chernivtsi regions when the Kyiv – Poltava – Kharkiv road is renovated. However, when this Fund is established – everyone will know that there will be good roads in his region. After all, the money from it will be allocated between state and local roads.
A positive point number three: a large part of Fund’s money will be used to finance the road safety. But this is not only the quality of roadway surfacing. Our road infrastructure requires a lot of facilities it is only dreaming of now. For example, we need to build safe pedestrian crossings. The existing ones are often equipped improperly.
The quality and placement of road signs is a separate case. Even if a driver doesn’t want to break traffic rules, he can cause a car accident. After all, road signs are placed improperly, they can be seen just very close, they are “hidden” in the bushes and trees and sometimes even contradict each other.
Thus, we have a very one-sided attitude of the state toward car drivers – it just requires them to observe the safety while guaranteeing nothing in return. The Road Fund will change this situation.
However, this necessary and useful draft law was just took as a basis. MPs will consider it again and make a final decision. The Better Regulation Delivery Office was directly involved in drafting this document, so we along with all car and pedestrian community will “keep our fingers crossed”. May the roads of Ukraine will become a source of pride but not jokes.