«Who is he? A judge or a mayor?» — Kantor believes that Panchenko should apologise, not look for the guilty

Mykolaiv City Council member Serhii Kantor believes that the criticism of Vira Sviatelyk, director of the Finance Department, by the head of the Planning and Budget Commission, Fedir Panchenko, is unfair.

He said this in a comment to NikVesti.

As you know, the head of the planning and budgeting commission of the Mykolaiv City Council, Fedir Panchenko, accused the director of the city council's finance department, Vira Sviatelyk, of making mistakes when planning the budget for 2025, which, according to him, resulted in the city not having enough money to pay salaries to employees at the end of the year.

«It's not just funny, it's sad. When funds are withdrawn from business trips and at the same time unreasonable figures are announced, it goes beyond common sense. These funds are used for business trips of the mayor, his deputies and other officials of the executive committee,» said Kantor.

In defence of the official, the deputy said that «Vira Sviatelyk is one of the few specialists in Mykolaiv who can professionally formulate the city budget».

«Her professionalism is also recognised by the mayor. In his interview yesterday regarding the accusations against Vira Yevhenivna, if it was really frank, he confirmed this on several occasions. The most painful thing is that today Fedir Borysovych allows himself to publicly «appoint the guilty». Who is he in this situation — a judge? Or perhaps a mayor? On what basis did he take on the right to declare Vira Sviatelyk guilty? In my understanding — and I know this area well and have been working in it for many years — Vira Yevhenivna is one of the few professional people in Mykolaiv today who can be counted on one hand, who is truly capable of forming a budget professionally. Fedir Borysovych, unlike her, will definitely not be able to do this,» said Serhii Kantor.

The Council member is convinced that Fedir Panchenko should publicly apologise to the Director of the Department of Finance.

«What we are witnessing today is legal chaos, gross violations of procedures and a real threat to the timely adoption of the city budget. The style of communication deserves a special mention: the openly rude manner in which colleagues on the commission are treated is neither a working discussion nor city management. This is a theatre of the absurd. I am convinced that Fedor Borisovich owes a public apology to Vera Svyatelyk, because he is actually shifting responsibility and publicly assigning blame! Stop the practice of looking for scapegoats. Today, Mykolaiv does not need loud statements, but responsibility, professionalism and compliance with the law,» added councillor Serhii Kantor.

In November, all budget payments were suspended in Mykolaiv due to a lack of funds for salaries

As a reminder, on 19 December 2024, members of the Mykolaiv City Council approved the city's budget for 2025. The total budget envisaged revenues of 5.4 billion hryvnias and expenditures of 5.2 billion hryvnias.

At that time, salary expenses for employees of executive bodies and budgetary institutions accounted for 38% of the total budget of Mykolaiv in 2025. The main source of budget revenues is income taxes paid by the residents of Mykolaiv.

In September 2025, Fedir Panchenko, a member of the Mykolaiv City Council and chairman of the planning and budget commission, warned of a shortage of funds in the city's budget for mandatory payments by the end of the year. At the time, he announced a figure of 200 million hryvnias.

It was then that Andrii Yantar, a member of Mykolaiv City Council, asked the budget commission to explain the possibilities of using budget funds for the needs of specific districts.

Andrii Yantar raised the issue of uneven funding of constituencies and asked for a mechanism to solve the problem. He cited an example from his district, when he was approached by local residents with a request to fix up a playground outside one of the houses in Inhulskyi district.

In response, Vira Sviatelyk, director of the city council's finance department, stressed that a solution should be sought jointly with the head of the budget commission, Fedir Panchenko, and the mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.

He also spoke about this at the meeting of the budget committee of the city council on the same day when considering the decision to redistribute the city budget. Back then, he said that it was necessary to look for money for protected items for November and December.

Subsequently, in early November, the main spending units and municipal enterprises of Mykolaiv were instructed to suspend all payments for expenditures that did not relate to protected items, namely public sector salaries and utility bills.

At the time, it was reported that the reason for this was the lack of budget funds to cover the protected budget items until the end of the year. The problem had been known for a long time, as the annual budget had not included funds for mandatory payments by the end of the year. The mayor's office hoped that budget overruns and savings during the year would help find the funds. However, this did not happen.

Later, the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said that the city budget was looking for 60 million hryvnias for salaries and utilities.