The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy supported the bill No. 10039, according to which 100% of the environmental tax should remain in the budgets of local councils. The authors of the bill were deputies from the OPPOSITION BLOC Alexander Vilkul, Dmitry Kolesnikov and Andrei Galchenko. The next step is the considering by the budget committee, after which the draft law will be put to a vote in the session hall.
According to Dmitry Kolesnikov, local communities should become stronger, and more funds should be left in the budgets of cities. “But now the opposite is happening. Cities are forced to send huge funds from local budgets for the maintenance of hospitals, salaries of school employees and other articles that the state simply refused to finance,” - the politician noted.
According to the opposition politician, 100% of the environmental tax should remain in the budgets of local councils, and not disappear by capital officials. "This tax is paid by enterprises that pollute the environment precisely on the ground, and people suffer from this on the ground, but not in Kyiv," - the parliamentarian clarified.
Kolesnikov recalled that the bill proposed by the opposition was the fourth on this issue: “Before that, the “reformers” did not even take them out to the polling station. Last year, 1.5 billion UAH of environmental tax and rent for land was transferred from Krivoy Rog to the state budget. Do you know how many returned? Zero! This is what they call "decentralization in a new way."
According to the politician, the adoption of the bill is only a matter of time. “In the program of Alexander Vilkul this issue is one of the key ones and after the victory in the elections it will definitely be resolved in favor of residents of Krivoy Rog! And these are “environmental allowances” for citizens, new equipment for hospitals, environmental programs, and much more,” - the MP emphasized.
