Vitalii Bezghin in Volyn: community financial capacity, access to services and support for IDPs

Vitalii Bezghin (Vitaliy Bezgin), Minister for Communities, Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, made a working visit to Volyn.

Today, together with First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Korniienko and MPs Viacheslav Rubliov and Arsenii Pushkarenko, he met with regional leaders and communities.

The discussion focused on what currently has the greatest impact on community capacity: finances, access to services for everyone and project implementation.

▪️Relations between the state and local government must be pragmatic and predictable. In this context, they discussed approaches to reverse grants and the predictability of subventions and grants. At the budget preparation stage, communities need to know the amount of state support for education, healthcare, social services, school meals and other areas. Our task is to provide these benchmarks in advance, not after budget implementation has begun.

▪️Community capacity was a separate topic. The methodology will be adjusted, but forced amalgamation of communities is not currently under consideration. Instead, an honest review of spending and solutions that enable communities to exercise their powers and provide people with quality services are needed.

▪️Another important area is access to services regardless of where a person lives. State policy must take account of the needs of remote areas. Basic services must also be available in small settlements. Village wardens have a special role here. They know the needs of remote villages best and are effectively the main link between people and the community. We will therefore work on dedicated instruments to support them.

▪️In regional policy, we focus on attracting the most effective financial resources, both national and international. This year, priority will be given to projects that can realistically be completed by the end of the year. For 2027, we are working to ensure communities receive rules and financial instruments on time, rather than in the middle of the budget year.

▪️Support for internally displaced persons. It is important to analyse the actual effectiveness of programmes. We must assess which instruments produce results and concentrate resources on the key areas: integration of IDPs into communities, access to housing and employment.

▪️At every meeting, communities raise the issue of construction pricing. We hear them and respond. This is one of the first tasks in the minister’s role. We are working to secure a government decision as early as next week.

▪️Vitalii Bezghin also thanked the communities of Volyn and Lutsk City Council for substantial financial support to the Dnipropetrovsk region for building shelters along routes to schools. The community allocated UAH 14.5 million against a request for UAH 1 million.

"I call on other regions to follow this example! In wartime, the capacity of local government is also measured by the readiness of stronger communities to support those facing greater difficulties today. I thank the communities for working together. We are working to secure a decision", said Vitalii Bezghin.