We call on MPs not to vote for bill 9627 — ‘Holka’

On February 6, the Verkhovna Rada will consider bill 9627, which is supposedly created “to attract investment and facilitate rapid reconstruction.” The authors are “Servant of the People” party members: Dmytro Kysilevskyi, Mariana Bezuhla, Oleksandr Haidu, and other MPs. A similar bill was previously lobbied for by the former deputy head of the President’s Office, Rostyslav Shurma, but it did not pass parliament.

“This legislative initiative carries corruption risks and harms our European integration commitments. Despite the fact that this project is being rushed to the second reading, we managed to study it. Our analyst Georgiy Mohylnyi has prepared a detailed analysis, which MPs can familiarize themselves with before voting. We call for not supporting the project in the second reading and voting against it,” says the leader of the public initiative “Holka” Irina Fedoriv.

Among the key risks are:

• Corruption will not disappear—it will only change the construction of the corrupt scheme, as the key body issuing urban planning conditions remains the same in the procedure and will decide manually who to issue the conclusion to and who not;
• Ukraine is essentially abandoning the implementation of the “Strategic Environmental Assessment Law,” adopted to comply with the relevant Directive of the European Parliament and Council;
• It allows changing the land use without urban planning documentation and simultaneously cancels the environmental assessment, as well as public participation in decisions affecting the environment;
• The bill reduces Ukraine’s attractiveness to foreign investors, making them uncompetitive compared to Ukrainian investors;
• Those who influence the reconstruction process or have access to insider information can easily profit from the sale of state land at an inflated price;
• Recreational facilities can be installed in forests without auctions. Hotels, sports complexes, or entire hunting grounds and reserves for wild animals. In other words, all conditions for the authorities to create their own “Mezhyhiryas”.