During the Forum of Local Self-Government President Petro Poroshenko noted that local budgets have increased by 3.4 times over four years of the reform.

“This year, the share of local budgets in the consolidated budget of Ukraine for the first time has finally exceeded the figure we once dreamed about,” said the President. He noted that this has happened and now part of local budgets, taking into account subventions and subsidies, exceeds the state budget.

The Head of State stressed that in 2018 the share of local budgets in the consolidated budget of the country is already 52%.

“This is a very symbolic and very fundamental figure. This means that our decentralisation programme, promised by me during the presidential campaign and fully implemented by the Ukrainian Government (is working – ed.). Changes are taking place every day,” Petro Poroshenko emphasised and thanked the Prime Ministers Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Volodymyr Groysman, as well as the Verkhovna Rada and, personally, Head of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy, for the legislative support of this process.

The President also stressed the importance of provision of open public access to local budgets by the Ministry of Finance.

“From now on the hromada will be able to see and properly assess both the salaries of executives and the amount of deposits. This is a vivid answer to the statement of some heads that there is no money for a kindergarten, road repairs or other hromada needs,” said Petro Poroshenko, emphasising that this openness will make it possible to strictly demand changes in the lives of cities and villages, to insist on using funds to solve the most acute problems.

The Head of State also noted that the volume of state support for hromadas and their infrastructure development has already increased by 39 times in comparison with 2014.