Prospects of a water tariff increase and a police appeal: how the Voznesensk City Council session was held

Voznesensk City Council. Photo: NikVesti

On 15 May, the 90th session of the City Council took place in Voznesensk. In particular, councillors made amendments to the budget, approved housing vouchers for IDPs and received a request from the police regarding co-funding of the Custody Records system at the local police station. The need to increase water tariffs was also discussed once again.

NikVesti will provide more details on what the councillors discussed.

Custody Records to safeguard the rights of detainees and police officers

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The head of the Voznesensk District Police Department, Oleksandr Havrylenko, appealed to councillors for co-funding. To comply with EU requirements, the police station needs to be refurbished and the Custody Records system introduced.

«At present, this need has arisen, and we will be asking for your help with co-funding to set up the so-called Custody Records room. This is not a favour for the police, nor is it our demand or some whim. It is one of the prerequisites for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union,» noted Oleksandr Havrylenko.

Custody Records is an electronic subsystem that records all actions concerning a detained person and also the police officers themselves, to protect against unfounded accusations by the detainee.

Olena Mizetska, Senior Inspector for Human Rights at the Voznesensk District Police Station, explained that Custody Records must be in place in every police station.

«We have a public reception room where I conduct these interviews. But according to future regulations, as we are joining the EU, there must be separate rooms for communicating with detainees. The aim of the system is to create a safe environment and safe conditions within police units for all parties involved, whilst also protecting human rights from potential unlawful actions by police officers and protecting the police officers themselves from unfounded accusations. The active roll-out of the system has been ongoing since 2016,» noted Olena Mizetska.

The Custody Records system in the police. Photo: Ukrinform

According to her, currently, during interviews with detainees, everything is recorded on a bodycam, but under EU standards there must be fixed video surveillance: audio and video recording. These recordings can be presented as evidence in court, as they are stored for 25 years. Monitoring can be carried out remotely from any city.

«In terms of zoning, there should be separate rooms. The first room, like a lobby, is the Custody Records area itself, where a person is brought to the district police station and the officers begin to record who the person is and on what grounds they have been detained. Next is the room where the detainee is interviewed by a human rights inspector. There is also a confidential room for communication with a defence lawyer. A separate room for investigative procedures. There is also video surveillance, which must operate 24/7. The Custody Records system is a database that must be updated on an ongoing basis. When a person is brought in, we record the details and enter them into our database,» the police officer noted.

According to her, 148 units across Ukraine have already implemented the Custody Records system. And there are plans to roll it out to 514 stations.

Oleksandr Havrylenko explained that last year they were preparing a restructuring project at the district headquarters to introduce Custody Records. A total of 26 million hryvnias is required for implementation. The National Police has allocated 13 million. The district communities are being asked to provide the remaining amount for co-financing. Specifically, in Voznesensk — 3.5 million hryvnias.

Once the funds have been allocated, a tender will be launched. Overall, it is expected that the project will be implemented within 1.5–2 years.

MPs have not yet considered the allocation of funds for this project.

Housing for IDPs

The City Council has approved the allocation of vouchers for IDPs who suffered in the temporarily occupied territory. This concerns veterans.

There are currently seven applications from veterans, but three were considered at the session.

«Three applications were submitted for a decision at the City Council session, where everything has been verified across all areas of activity; according to all databases, these people are 100% eligible to receive a voucher worth 2 million hryvnias for housing. We have deferred four applications to the next meeting, as three have certain issues and one had not submitted a complete set of documents at the time of the committee’s review. In total, 22 people were approved by previous session decisions; some of them have already purchased housing and are exercising their right to claim the 2 million from the state,» explained Iryna Shyshliannikova, Head of the Social Protection Department .

Changes to the budget

According to the explanatory note to the draft city council decision, councillors increased revenue in the general part of the budget:

• received 73,692 hryvnias from the budget of the Buzke rural community for subsidised dental prosthetics;
• excise duty on fuel imported into the customs territory of Ukraine: 950,000 hryvnias;
• a single tax of 136,353 hryvnias from legal entities and 1 million hryvnias from individuals.

The councillors also reallocated:

• 500,000 hryvnias for routine repairs to part of the premises of pre-school educational institution №2 «Sonechko»;
• 99,000 hryvnias for routine repairs to the building of the evening school at Voznesensk Secondary School №2 (Grades 1–3);
• 700,000 hryvnias to the Housing and Utilities Department for electricity and financial support for the municipal enterprise «City Sanitation».

Changes to the budget as a whole:

Explanatory note on the budget amendments. Screenshot of the Voznesensk City Council website

Explanatory note on the budget amendments. Screenshot from the Voznesensk City Council website

In addition, the meeting approved amendments to the budget providing for an increase in expenditure from the special development fund of 360,000 hryvnias for the development of design and cost estimate documentation for the modular Centre for the Provision of Administrative Services. A further 15,000 hryvnias has been allocated separately for surveying work on the same project.

The Administrative Services Centre building. Photo: Voznesensk City Council

The need to raise water tariffs

Voznesensk Mayor Yevhen Velychko reiterated the need to increase water and sewerage tariffs. If approved, the tariff could rise by a total of 36 hryvnias. For now, according to the mayor, they are trying to keep the tariff in check by installing solar power stations.

«We budgeted 10 hryvnias per unit of energy, but today it’s 16.9. This is throwing us off track a bit. It seems right now to talk about an inevitable rise in tariffs. But why have we been delaying it for several months? Because we have the prospect of solar power stations coming online. And this will allow us to balance things out a little, precisely because today, if we were to raise prices, the cost of water and wastewater services would have to increase by 36 hryvnias. That would be a death blow. We understand that this would be very difficult for the population,» said Yevhenii Velychko.

Session of the Voznesensk City Council. Screenshot of the broadcast

Furthermore, according to Yevhen Velychko, even if the budget is exceeded, there is still not enough money.

«It’s a very difficult budget, very complicated because we overspent the budget by exactly 10 hryvnias (per energy unit, — note). And it simply threw us off track. I must note that this month alone we exceeded the budget by 2 million 80 thousand hryvnias. Before that, we were running the budget at exactly 100%,» said the mayor.

Until the solar power stations are installed, we have to pay compensation from the budget to cover the cost of energy.

«Even so, look, we’re compensating, we’re installing solar power stations, and we’ll still be raising the tariff. We’re simply trying to do this as rationally as possible, keeping the increase to a minimum. Despite the fact that we’ve exceeded the budget by 24% compared to last year, we still don’t have enough funds, given the rise in energy and fuel costs,» added the mayor.

It should be noted that at the previous session, there was also discussion of the need to raise water tariffs in Voznesensk.