Mykolaiv Capital Construction Department once again failing to meet its budget targets: in six months, it has spent less than 15 per cent of the funds

For the fourth year running, the Capital Construction Department has shown a negative trend in the use of Mykolaiv’s budget; archive photo NikVesti

Mykolaiv’s Capital Construction Department has once again shown a negative trend in the use of budget funds. This is evidenced by data on the use of Mykolaiv’s budget as at 1 July, published on the city council’s official website and analysed by the editorial team at NikVesti.

In total, the Mykolaiv budget for 2026 allocates 237.8 million hryvnias to the Capital Construction Department. It was anticipated that the department would spend 109.8 million hryvnias over the first half of the year. However, the actual official reports showed that over the six-month period, the department — overseen by Deputy Mayor Serhii Korenev — spent only 14.5 million hryvnias. This amounts to 13.3 per cent of their annual budget. Of this, 93.5 per cent of the funds were spent on staff salaries, whilst capital expenditure accounted for 9.2 per cent of the annual plan.

Assuming that the department maintains the same rate of budget implementation during the second half of the year, it can be expected that around 200 million hryvnias will remain unspent by the end of 2026.

This is the lowest budget implementation rate among the structural units of the Mykolaiv City Council for the first half of 2026.

Furthermore, it is also worth noting that, according to the official report, 31.7 million hryvnias of Mykolaiv’s budget remain unallocated and are held in the accounts of the Department of Finance.

Data on the utilisation of Mykolaiv’s budget for the first half of 2026, sourced from the Mykolaiv City Council website

It should be noted that, based on the results for 2025, the Mykolaiv Capital Construction Department also performed the worst in terms of budget implementation: out of the planned 235 million hryvnias, the department spent only 142.7 million hryvnias. Consequently, their budget implementation rate stood at 60.7 per cent. Had the Department not received around 70 million hryvnias in December last year, the execution rate — assuming the actual volume of expenditure remained unchanged — would have been less than half, namely 46.8 per cent, and the amount of unspent funds would have risen to over 162 million hryvnias.

At the same time, expenditure on staff costs within the department was 100 per cent implemented: of the planned 8.8 million hryvnias for salaries and allowances over the year, the entire amount was spent down to the last kopiika.

It should be noted that the Capital Construction Department, overseen by Mykolaiv’s Deputy Mayor Serhii Korenev, consistently fails to spend its budget funds: the implementation rate for 2024 stood at 32 per cent, and for 2023 at 32.4 per cent.

Oleksii Savchuk, Head of the Mykolaiv Capital Construction Department, photo: NikVesti

According to the results for 2025, 92.3 million hryvnias remained unspent, which the Capital Construction Department was supposed to spend on capital expenditure, namely repairs, reconstruction and the acquisition of fixed assets.

Commenting on the 2025 budget implementation figures in January, Mykolaiv’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, stated that the Capital Construction Department had been unable to spend part of the budget due to problems with contractors. The Capital Construction Department, however, stated at the time that their work should not be judged by the low percentage of budget implementation.

It was previously reported that the Mykolaiv City Council’s Education Department required an additional 60 million hryvnias to provide meals for children in the city’s nurseries. As of today, there is only enough money left to cover meals for two more days, stated Hanna Lychko during a staff meeting at the mayor’s office on 6 July.