PM discussed with local authorities of Ivano-Frankivsk plans for construction of roads, establishment of hub schools and effectiveness of use of local budgets

On Friday, March 11, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk met with heads of regional state administrations and heads of regional cities of Ivano-Frankivsk region.

The Prime Minister stressed that last year the Government had promised to build a new Lviv - Ivano-Frankivsk road, "And we built it." The meeting discussed the general plan for the construction of roads in Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lviv and neighboring regions.

The Prime Minister underlined that this year will launch repair of sections of Ivano-Frankivsk - Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk - Rakhiv roads. The Minister of Infrastructure Andrii Pyvovarsky noted that they also have every opportunity to start and finish repairing road on the section to Vyzhnytsia in 2016.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that the Government launched a project as to competitions on establishing the so-called ‘hub’ schools. Arseniy Yatsenyuk appealed to the local authorities to provide their suggestions to the project: "For us, the quality of education, especially secondary, education for children in villages and small towns is the key to the future of the country."

To ensure the implementation of the hub school project, the Prime Minister stressed, "the local authorities have to solve the issue with the roads leading to these hub schools. They must be repaired."

He also reminded that he had instructed to purchase a thousand school buses by September 1. To this end, the Government allocates UAH 500 million from the state budget, and the remaining UAH500 million must be co-financed by the local budgets.

New roads, added Arseniy Yatsenyuk, will enable the region to develop: "It means extra taxes, as well as jobs. This is primarily the development of small and medium-sized businesses and employment creation."

Arseniy Yatsenyuk pointed out the importance of efficient use of the funds of the State Regional Development Fund in order to avoid spending hundreds of millions hryvnias on uncompleted objects.

The financial decentralization process has resulted in a significant increase of revenues to the local budgets, which should be used efficiently as well: "A significant amount of resources we have transferred on the field. And for you and for us as the central Government is very important the effectiveness of the use of this money - what changes people will see what we sent resources from the state fund for regional development and decentralization of cities, towns and villages."