Cartel conspiracy of developers. How the government pressures the public sector?

One of the civil society organizations announced the termination of funding for the project “Support for the formation of effective regional policy in the context of European integration and military challenges”. This is the Civil Society Institute.

In its statement, the organization wrote about informal pressure from the Ministry of Restoration. It refers to international partners who were planning to finance this project. Accordingly, officials and politicians use their status to influence the decisions of our international partners regarding various projects, not necessarily to the benefit of public welfare.

What did this civil society organization do to warrant such pressure? Essentially, they were providing suggestions on how to optimize spending from local budgets and improve our policy quality. But who cares about fair play when billions from taxpayers of other countries enter (or could enter) the country? It seems obvious to everyone that you cannot demand from the public to simultaneously create recovery plans and programs without first developing a strategy for development and an integrated concept. Everyone understands this, except the ministry.

This public statement on the civil society organization’s website is not just very valuable. It is priceless. It should be noted that there are already known facts of pressure on the public sector from the cartel through officials and politicians in just such a way. And not everyone speaks out. It can be worse: you see not only silence but also cooperation…

Cartels always act very harshly, and those spines that do not bend in these conditions are especially valuable, capable of resisting both in the political system and in the media, and in the public sector.

And it is even more distressing to understand that we do not know the names of the TAPAS experts who supported the scandalous urban planning “reform” 5655. The public initiative “Holka” sent a request and still did not receive an answer about who these experts were who analyzed the bill. This is despite TAPAS declaring “transparency and accountability” as a value.

At the end of last week, “Glavkom” wrote that the Presidential Office is preparing personnel changes, and Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, who heads the Ministry of Restoration, may leave. We also know that this politician has long been out of favor at Bankova. But there are those who hold onto this candidate tooth and nail.

Recovery is a crazy amount of money. And in their cartel conspiracy, developers will do everything: use the media, try to manipulate Western partners through officials, and pressure the public sector.

The key here is not to remain silent. It’s good that there are decisions of the European Parliament and the report of the European Commission, which pointed out the red lines when the bill from the leader of the “Servant of the People” party Olena Shuliak (5655) was being pushed through. It’s great that Chatham House (UK) in its document directly noted that “due to imperfect regulation, construction cartels may arise”… And they referred to the analysis of our public initiative “Golka”.

The cartel has already developed and is operating. The wealth of Ilya Vityuk improved after a public event aimed at taming the community of architects who criticized bill 5655. This was written by the deputy head of the Architectural Chamber of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine Anna Kiri. And for publicly revealing Vityuk’s financial situation, the journalist of Slidstvo.Info received a summons. What is this if not pressure?

There are also known facts of censorship and pressure in the context of the urban planning reform 5655, when the issue was about the “Governmental Courier”, and recently the material of “Golka” was attempted to be removed from the Espresso website. The editorial staff of Espresso and the public initiative made a joint statement about this.

One of the key tasks of the cartel is to block work on the Urban Planning Code, which is being developed by a working group in the Committee on State Construction and Local Self-Government, because it is an alternative to 5655. This working group is headed by MP Anna Bondar (“Servant of the People”). Blocking this work is very harmful and should not be allowed.

The trust of our partners who give us money from taxpayers of their countries for reconstruction is very important. Everyone who undermines this trust, both in the eyes of partners and in the eyes of taxpayers of other countries, harms our economy and national security.

Specially for “Espresso”