Mayor of Mykolaiv Oleksandr Senkevich wishes the 9th convention deputies should raise in Verkhovna Rada the draught law on port dues to help involve funds in a city’s budget.
He told that nowadays the resources available in Mykolaiv are not sufficient to provide major overhaul of the city’s roads, and further reported on the port dues bill capable of attracting monies into the city’s fisc.
“It is necessary to say that these additional funds we should obtain, I reckon, from the port dues. It’s as simple as that: we have Ukrainian sea ports authority collecting these dues, being a state-owned enterprise transmitting annual dividends into the state budget, which I believe we deserve as well. Because these ports operating in port cities earn monies for the state, and the latter ought to only share these funds with municipalities. Say, we take a half of the amount coming as dividends, i.e. 2Bn UAH, and divide it between port cities, or rather port regions. We have some handling volumes processed by these or those ports, and the funds should be divided by regions on the same ratio, then identify within a region which parts should go to the cities and the rest would go be assigned for regional motorways. There could be a specialised dedicated fund acquiring these particular contributions. We may start with a 5-year program and see how it works”, told Mr Senkevich.
“I think this is what the new MPs should deal with immediately, so that this law is integrated in the state budget for 2020 and we get it not sometime after nobody knows when, but as soon as the next year. There is too little time left as it must be formed in September”, added the city’s leader.
Earlier MP Borys Kozyr initiated amendments into Budget Code of Ukraine enabling to direct 50% of the sea ports profits, coming from USPA to the state fisc, to the local budgets for infrastructure development of port cities.
Besides, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in the course of his visit to Mykolaiv has announced he supports the idea of USPA sharing a half of its profits now transmitted into the country’s budget with the ports’ municipalities.
https://cfts.org.ua/news/2019/07/29/mer_nikolaeva_prosit_parlament_napravlyat_chast_portovykh_sborov_v_mestnye_byudzhety_primorskikh_gorodov_54433