On March 9, the presentation of amendments to procedures of subsoil use and auctions for selling special permits for developing oil and gas deposits was held.
The members of the resolution drafting team – the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Yuliya Kovaliv, the Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Svitlana Kolomiyets, the representative of the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry Olha Adamovska and the head of the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) Oleksiy Honcharuk – commented on the approved amendments.
According to experts, today an important step towards the beginning to eliminate corruption in the subsoil use field was finally presented in Ukraine.
As noted by Oleksiy Honcharuk, 4104 special permits in this area have been granted in recent years in Ukraine. Only about 5% of them passed through a competitive auction procedure.
“Until recently, the subsoil use field was one of the most corrupt in Ukraine, including due to imperfect regulation of relations,” the Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Svitlana Kolomiyets said.
Amendments to the Cabinet of Ministers’ resolutions #594 and #615 of 5/30/2011 significantly reduce a list of reasons to avoid the sale of special permits by auction, simplify a procedure for granting permits and specify reasons to refuse subsoil use. Also, an important fact is innovation providing business owners with the possibility to independently initiate offering some subsoil areas for auctions.
“Ukraine needs an effective regulatory policy. The adoption of amendments to the rules of granting special permits for subsoil use is the first step. It is the first step but very important to start a large-scale reform of subsoil resource management. We have to prove to the world that Ukraine can become a comfortable country for business and investors. And last but not the least – doing that through reasonable improvement of the effective regulation system,” Oleksiy Honcharuk said.
Presented amendments are aimed at introducing elements of effective and reasonable economy regulation and reducing corruption in the field of subsoil use. Specified rules for this market remove corruption barriers to ensure the participation of serious domestic and international players in auctions, set equal rules and create conditions for fair competition.